Winding Path
by BatmanLoonaticsFan96
Summary: When Terra Shepard's home on Mindoir is raided by batarian slavers, her entire family lost, she is left alone. Until she is discovered, rescued, and adopted by turians. Pre-ME1 to post-ME3
1. Mindoir

Winding Path

Hello, everyone! I have a new story, which is gonna be a pretty long one, and I really hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 1: Mindoir

Because love is a winding path  
It is a long journey  
Many rises and falls and twists and turns  
Those who walk it alone often lose their way  
Those who walk it together will always be stronger  
For those who walk together are strong

_April 11, 2170…_

She knew it was her birthday when she woke to the sounds of her mother's "Call of the Starbird" on the piano and the scent of her father's apple cinnamon pancakes cooking. It was enough to draw a smile before she even opened her eyes. When she did open her eyes and saw out her window that the sun was just barely on the rise, she took a moment to enjoy the sensations and the fact that she was newly 16.

That moment only ended when her mother's recital came to an end and her voice instead called up the stairs. "Terra! Are you coming down or not?"

So with a smirk and a roll of her eyes, she tossed aside the covers and stood up to get dressed.

Terra Luna Shepard was the middle child of a family of farmers, but their family had always been more artistically inclined. Her father was a chef and skilled with crafting and repairing instruments. Her mother was a composer and could play most human instruments. They had met when she found him restoring a piano and she tested it with a song she had written—"love at first note," as they put it. After they married, they joined the colonization effort for the planet of Mindoir and started a family. Their firstborn, Nathan, was now 17 and a talented writer. Their youngest, Violet, was 14 and was also an amazing singer, pianist, flutist, and violinist. In between the two, Terra was a true artist, always drawing in her sketchbook and occasionally "trying her hand" at painting or poetry. The walls of her room were littered with drawings and paintings, some of which coincided with her mother's songs or her brother's stories, and it was a running joke in the family that taking her anywhere would lead to her stopping them all in their tracks for up to an hour to "quickly" capture the landscape. She didn't mind any of it, though. She couldn't imagine living any other way.

When she came downstairs, her mother came over from the piano to hug her. "Happy birthday, Terra."

"Thanks, Mom," Terra smiled. She leaned back to look at her. "I don't suppose Dad's finished making breakfast yet."

"I know better than to keep the birthday girl waiting," her father smirked as he came out of the kitchen to set the food in question on the table.

"Clearly," Terra shook her head as she went over to hug him.

Her father gestured for her to sit down then turned to the rest of the house. "Nathan, Violet! You ready yet or not?"

Nathan Shepard quickly came out from his room. "I know, I'm coming." He held up a wrapped box. "Forgot where I hid the present."

"Oh," Terra said, "well, if you're worried you might misplace it again, I could just take it now—"

"Not so fast!" Violet Shepard rushed in, placing her own box on top of their brother's, "Rules are rules—food first, then presents. Plus, I want you to open mine first."

Terra smirked. "OK. You know I can't say 'no' to my baby sister."

"Sometimes, I wish you would," Nathan commented as Violet sat down next to him.

"Enough of that, Nate," their mother quickly stepped in as she took her seat.

"What? I'm her older brother. It's my job to pick on her."

Terra simply rolled her eyes. This was the family dynamic she was used to, after all, and she was perfectly happy with it. As the calming scent of cinnamon permeated the air, she could only bring to mind good memories and the thought that more were about to be made.

_April 24, 2170…_

This was the scent of nightmares: blood, smoke, burning vegetables, dust, and metal.

Terra was running, ignoring the sounds of screams and gunfire and flame behind her. She ignored them…but she couldn't drown them out.

Her home was on fire. The entire village had been besieged by an alien force, so completely blindsided that the Alliance forces stationed there to protect them were quickly either wiped out or disabled. The Shepard family ran for it, searching for some place to hide.

As they came to an alley, their parents stopped.

"They're gaining on us," their mother stated breathlessly.

"We can move faster if we split up," her husband responded, turning to Nathan, "Get the girls to the hills, find a place to hide. _Don't look back_."

Nathan nodded. With a brief promise to meet at the edge of the village once they were clear, he brought his sisters to follow and continued running.

Terra did as she'd been told. She didn't look back. As they ran, she focused on figuring out where to go, fighting the bite in her feet and the heat on her skin and the terror in her heart. But then she listened. She didn't hear footsteps going the other way. She heard shouts and struggling. It was only now she realized there wasn't a path that direction. The only way her parents could have gone was straight into a clearing.

They hadn't been splitting up to get farther. They were buying time for their children to escape.

Terra made the mistake of looking back now.

Right as the first of two deafening gunshots rang out.

_April 11, 2170…_

Terra could see why Violet wanted her to open her present first. She was amazed at what she received. It seemed like a simple pencil box; however, it not only was just the right size to carry all of her precious drawing tools but also played music when opened. Specifically, it played a recording of one of their mother's piano compositions, the one that Terra would often leave playing when she was drawing. "Vi, this…this is wonderful!"

Violet smirked. "Well, I had to meet the bar you set with mine."

Terra smiled. Violet's birthday was only two months ago. Their father had spent over a week making a violin for her, one Terra then spent the better part of a day painting with an elaborate design of actual violets. It was no Stradivarius, but in Violet's hands, it sang. Not many 14-year-olds celebrated their birthday by practicing Vivaldi. Because not many 14-year-olds were Violet Shepard (which worked out well, because Terra couldn't name a single other 14-year-old who could play Vivaldi properly).

Terra set the box aside, taking note that Violet had left it a simple metal casing with the obvious intent that Terra would paint it herself later like she had painted the violin.

Nathan shook his head. "Way to make my gift look bad, Vi." Ignoring the scoffing look Violet tossed his way, he slid his present over for Terra to unwrap.

Terra pulled the paper off to reveal a book inside. When she opened it, she found that each page was a printed copy of one of her paintings, underlined by the poetic lines she had scrapped when she couldn't fit them into a proper verse. Seeing her works presented this way was truly special. Seeing that the last several pages carried a short story of Nathan's written in her honor and the final opening was a family portrait was even better. She was speechless when she tried to voice her gratitude.

Violet gave Nathan a stunned look when she saw just what he'd given their sister. "What was that you were saying about _me_ making _your_ gift look bad?"

"If it helps, Vi," Terra shrugged as she set the book aside, "I'll be getting more use out of yours."

Violet shrugged with a light smirk. "Well, I guess it helps a little."

Terra simply smiled, rolling her eyes even as she fought the urge to laugh.

"Oh!" Nathan spoke up, "I meant to tell you, sis. Your birthday is apparently good luck. Look what came in the mail today." He held up a book.

Terra looked it over. Upon seeing her brother's name on the cover, she quickly snatched it from his hands and began to scan through it. "No way! You didn't even tell me you finished it!"

"This day and age, you can get published pretty quickly. Figured it'd be a nice surprise."

Violet simply cocked her head at it. "They're _printing_ it? …on paper?"

"Not as a whole, no. This was special order. You know how much we all prefer the traditional."

Terra beamed as she opened the book. She flipped through the pages towards the first chapter. She froze halfway there. "Nate…"

Nathan smiled. "That's the rest of your present, actually."

One of her poems was in the opening pages, right before a dedication to her.

Each star is but a fire  
Burning deep within the night  
But flames still speak desire  
And darkness shows the light

Terra smiled to her brother, hugging the book close and resolving to read it later.

Nathan smiled back. "I know I don't say it much, but…you're actually very inspiring."

Violet sighed. "You know, you could say it about me, too, once in a while." She then stood up and went to retrieve her violin, playing their mother's "Sunrise Sonata" as Nathan laughingly took notes on his omni-tool that would presumably go into whatever wild story he had next in mind.

Terra closed her eyes and let her sister's music wash over her. She wished every day could be like this one.

_April 24, 2170…_

It was only thanks to Nathan that Terra had the strength to keep running. When she threatened to lose all her strength to the devastation of the chaos around her, he took her hand and just kept running. The shock of witnessing her parents' murders didn't even have time to settle into her as they raced through the burning streets in search of a place to hide. Nathan finally dragged her through a clearing, careful to move only when none of the invaders were nearby, and uncovered a hidden compartment under a hill. It was supposed to be a storage unit but it doubled as a storm shelter of sorts; since Mindoir saw so few storms, it was rarely used and slightly overgrown, a natural camouflage the invaders would certainly overlook.

_Perfect,_ Nathan concluded, prying the door open. "Get in. We need to—"

"Wait!" Terra looked around, panic clutching her at what she found. "Where's Violet?!"

Nathan turned to look behind them. Their sister wasn't there. She must have fallen behind. Inside, he was furious with himself for not keeping up with her, but this was no time to lose it. Instead, he pulled Terra over. "Just get in and stay quiet. I'll go back for her."

"Nate—" Terra immediately debated.

"We don't have time to argue! Get down!" He all but pushed her in, forcing her to comply. Once she was in, he closed the door, locking it and hiding it as best he could. "I'll be back with her as soon as I can." So he raced off.

Terra watched him go through the crack between the door and the ground. She could see the entire clearing through it.

She could see her world falling apart.

_April 11, 2170…_

As Terra sat in bed at the end of the day, she kept her new pencil box open and drew the night sky as the colors of sunset faded to reveal the stars. She could still hear her mother and sister playing together downstairs, a sound that made her smile as she captured the constellations of Mindoir that she loved to see every night—the falcon, the fox, the sailor. It was sights like this one that had first inspired her in her chosen craft.

When she finished the drawing, she carefully placed everything back in her new box and closed it so she could properly hear the songs playing downstairs. She slid the box and her sketchbook into her pack, which she always kept handy in case of sudden flashes of inspiration, and looked back on the events of the day while she prepared to turn in for the night.

She adored her family. As she closed her eyes to rest, the stars through her window the last thing she saw that night, she dreamed of spending her days on Mindoir, the Shepard clan a constant source of brightness in the fields.

_April 24, 2170…_

Terra stayed down, still peering under the hidden door. She stayed quiet, no matter how much she wanted to cry and scream. She was already paralyzed by the fear and dread, horrified by what she saw.

She watched as the invaders closed in. She watched as the few Systems Alliance soldiers stationed on Mindoir came into the small clearing outside the alcove. She watched as they fought desperately against the invading aliens and were overcome. She watched in horror as the soldiers were forced to helplessly observe the colonists' suffering before being subjected to the same torture.

She watched as the invaders dragged Violet into the clearing. She watched powerlessly as Nathan rushed to his sister's defense only for one of the batarians to force him back, as he struggled to disarm his captor…as that captor finally delivered a blow so sharp that Nathan dropped, unmoving, to the ground. Violet cried and screamed as she was forced to witness the whole scene before being dragged away. Once she was out of view, her screams blended in with all the other helpless colonists being tied down and implanted like cattle.

Terra watched it all, frozen and silent. She finally collapsed in the alcove, waited for the attack to die down, and burst into tears, no longer willing to ever dig her way out of this hole.


	2. Intervention

Chapter 2: Intervention

Destiny rings true  
But fate lies false  
Destiny guides and guards  
Every love and life within the circle  
But fate lies outside the ring  
The only fate we know is death

A scout cruiser was journeying through the Attican Traverse. On it were about 200 aliens. Aliens known as turians. The turians were the military arm of the Council and, though the Council preferred not to actively engage militarily in the Traverse, were charged with watching for signs of unrest or disturbances in Council-controlled space. They were being careful to stay away from Terminus space as much as possible, but they were skirting the boundaries and all was quiet.

In the cargo deck, a young male turian sat on a crate, inspecting his firearm. This scouting trip was his first assignment since joining the turian military, having just recently come of age to do so, and he was intent to remain prepared, keeping his preferred weapon at the ready. He had been hoping for an assignment where the action was, but even turian recruits start small.

Once he was convinced his gun was as cared for as it was going to get and there was no immediate use for it, he holstered it and decided to head to the upper decks for some sign of a better use of his time. He was still low ranking, naturally, but that just meant he was in the best position to prove himself. He'd already won a couple of the sparring matches that happened so regularly on these scout tours. He wasn't exactly the type to settle for second best. He pushed himself. Turians respected that. He was actually hoping someone would be up for another round right now, if only to release some of the tension that had built up inside him from sitting bored in the cargo bay on what was meant to be their last round through the cluster before beginning the return trip to Palaven.

Instead, he noticed some commotion on the bridge. Curious, he went over to peer in.

"Which planet is it?" the commander asked.

"Mindoir, human colony," the COMM officer answered, "It sent out a distress signal but it's gone completely dark."

"Any activity?"

"Not at the moment. But radiation trails indicate there were a lot of ships here about three hours ago."

The commander considered for a moment. "The Alliance probably responded to the signal and evacuated. Let's keep moving."

The young turian tensed when he heard that. He knew good and well something was wrong. And he had a sneaking suspicion the commander did, too. All of his training was telling him to stay out of it. But nobody's perfect. And this turian wasn't one to sit back and accept the worst of it. At least not when he could do something about it. So against his better judgment, he stepped in. "Sir, shouldn't we at least investigate?"

The commander, on the other hand, was by the book. He all but scowled at the private's attempt to intervene. "You have a concern to report, rookie?"

The private was risky. Not stupid. He took the precaution of standing at attention as he explained: "We were tasked to investigate possible disturbances. Unless we can contact the Alliance and prove otherwise, this qualifies. If it wasn't an evacuation and the Alliance doesn't know about it, checking into it for them could foster some good will that the hierarchy could use as long as we're planning on staying allies."

The COMM officer couldn't help but smirk at the reasoning, tossing a glance at the commander. "Kid's got a point, sir."

The commander shook his head. "It's still a human colony, it's outside of our jurisdiction."

"With all due respect, sir," the private cut back in, "if we're only concerned with turian colonies, why come to the Traverse in the first place?"

That was hard to debate. So the commander reluctantly relented. With a sigh, he turned to the PA system. "Possible disturbance on sensors. All hands prepare to disembark."

The young turian followed the other crewmen to the cargo bay to gear up and wait for the ship to land. He stayed quiet as they unloaded the cruiser and made their way to the settlement. He looked around at the world they had landed on, his eyes alight with wonder at every sight on the unfamiliar planet. _If there's one thing I can say about the humans, it's that they know how to pick a good colony._

It was then, as they crossed over a ridge, that the turians all stopped.

The young turian looked down at the colony from the rise. …or at least what remained of it. "…spirits…"

The colony was ashes and shambles. The entire village below them had been razed to the ground, every crop in sight burned, the streets littered with battered corpses and stained with bright red blood. The sight was gruesome and horrific, alien or no.

The commander quickly took control of the situation. "Spread out and look for survivors." He turned on his COMM. "Send word to the Alliance. This colony's been raided."

The young turian stepped back and headed down from the ridge as the scouting party spread out. Once he had found an area to investigate, he set to work. He kept his omni-tool set to a medical scanner to monitor the bodies for vital signs, but he knew there wouldn't be survivors. He had spent enough time learning detective work to put the pieces together. Mass graves mostly of adults, indentations in the grass in the pattern of cages, blood spatter from gunshots but also from precision knife work as if from surgical implantation…batarian slavers. He sighed sadly as he carefully stepped over a body that had been brutalized, pre-mortem according to the scan. _No one deserves this._ He was about to give up on the search for survivors and head back to the ship, turning to move past a hill.

He stopped when he heard something. He looked around in confusion, wondering if perhaps the batarians were still there. He observed the area, readying his weapon and trying to figure out what caused the sound. Then he heard it again.

There was someone crying nearby.

He quickly started working to determine the origin of the weeping. He finally located the source under a small mound of plant growth on the hillside. He stepped over and inspected it, finding a hidden door underneath. He carefully removed the grass covering and saw the door sealed by a chain lock. With the grass off, the sobbing behind the door was even clearer. There was definitely someone in there—someone _trapped_ in there. Without taking a moment to think about it, he pulled out his gun and fired on the lock. The gunshot and the subsequent sound of the chain breaking caused the crying within to stop. He disregarded that, tossing the chain aside, holstering his gun, and pulling the door open.

As soon as he was visible to the human inside, she scooted back into the wall of the alcove, huddled up in fear and suppressing a scream. He looked at her carefully. She was about 16 years old by human standards. She had a pale complexion, slightly darkened from working in the Mindoir sun. Her wavy brown hair fell over her face, partially concealing the bright blue eyes currently drowning with sorrow and terror.

He knelt down at the opening, holding his hand out gently. "It's OK. It's over. They're gone."

She still clutched the dirt wall behind her. Clearly, she was just as scared of him as she was of the batarians that had raided her home.

He got down lower and held his hand out just a slight bit closer. "I'm not gonna hurt you. I won't let anyone hurt you. You're safe now."

She looked him over, as if trying to assess if he was really a threat. Finally, she pulled her hand away from the dirt she crouched against and reached to take his hand.

He pulled her out of the alcove, helping her back into the open field.

She didn't make it to her feet. As soon as she was out of the dirt and back on the grass, she collapsed, falling back into tears. "…they killed my parents…they took my sister…I couldn't stop it…I couldn't…" She took a moment to fight the sobs before a sudden realization struck her. "…Nathan. Nathan!" She pulled herself to her feet as best she could, rushing headlong into the mess of bodies in search of the one she was calling for.

He didn't bother trying to stop her until she located him. When she finally found this Nathan and knelt down, he made his way over to do one last quick medical scan.

"Is he OK?" she asked, "They hit him and he fell and he hasn't moved but…he was going to get me out, he was…Violet…"

He simply checked the results. …no vitals. The impact she was struggling to relay to him had broken his neck. He was dead before he hit the ground. "…I'm sorry, he's…"

"No, he's not! He just needs medi-gel. He has to—"

He cut her off, shutting off his omni-tool and grabbing her wrist. "…he's gone."

She couldn't bring herself to speak anymore. The grief weighed so heavy on her that the tears drowned out everything else.

He struggled to respond, watching as she cried, wondering if he should attempt to comfort her. He stopped worrying about it when his COMM went off.

_"All sectors report."_

_"Sector 1 clear. No survivors."_

_"Sector 2 clear. No survivors."_

_"Sector 3 clear. No survivors."_

He turned to check in. "Sector 4 clear. One survivor."

_"You found one? We've got the Alliance on the line. They're asking for names."_

He turned to the human in tears beside him. "What's your name?"

She looked at him sadly. "…Terra. Terra Shepard."

He relayed this to the commander, turning off his COMM when the response was to stand by. Then he turned to offer the human girl his hand.

She simply looked at the gesture for a moment before pulling herself together and taking it, letting him pull her to her feet. "I…I need to go home." The word pained her as she remembered how she had left her home. "…what's left of it."

He nodded. "Show me the way."

With a mournful look at her brother's body, she started making her way through the ruins of her colony towards the house she had grown up in. "And you?"

He gave her a curious look.

"Your name."

_Oh._ He stuck close to her side as he answered "I'm Garrus. Garrus Vakarian."

_Ten minutes later…_

Terra would be crying again to see her beloved home torn and burned as it was now, but she had no tears left to shed. She felt distant and broken as she examined the remnants of her childhood and her family scattered, shattered, left to ruin. Garrus stayed respectfully silent, staying off to the side as she searched for something undamaged in all the wreckage, pretending to watch for some sign of danger even though they both knew the danger was long gone. She couldn't help but wonder if things would be different had these turians arrived just a few hours earlier, but she knew better than to let wondering get the best of her. It was too late for that now.

She went through every room in the house, looking for something the fires had left untouched. Her mother's beloved piano was smashed to pieces. Her father's kitchen was charred beyond recognition. Her parents' room was ashen and trashed. Nathan's room looked as if it had been ransacked by a tornado rather than torched by batarians.

But in Violet's room, something remained. Terra gasped when she saw it, uncertain if she could bear to believe it. She fell to her knees on the floor, carefully removing the box from its position in the wood and metal slats that used to be the closet. The Shepard family had a few possessions Violet considered too important to risk, so she had found a "disaster-proof" box to keep them in—a fireproof metal weighted against flood or winds and sealed against dust or rain or lightning. It had been about as expensive as a Stradivarius, but she had considered her homemade violin just as valuable. So there within the seal lay the violet-decorated violin, still safe within its case. And right next to it were Violet's copy of Nathan's book, sheet music prints of every composition their mother had written as well as the datapad containing her works in progress, their father's workbook, and all of Terra's artworks and poetry books—including her birthday presents. There was enough space left for the flute that they had all expected their father would be crafting for Violet's next birthday…but now it would have to serve as space for any belongings Terra could recover to take away from here.

So Terra sealed the box again and, after sifting through the wreckage of her own room, prepared to drag it out of the rubble for good.

As she was sifting, though, Garrus received another call on his COMM. He answered but, upon seeing Terra in the next room, figured it was only fair to put it on speaker this time. "Vakarian."

_"We still have the Alliance on the line," the COMM officer's voice came through, "Yours was the only survivor and they want us to patch you through."_

Garrus sighed. "Go ahead."

_"This is the Alliance ambassadors' office," a human voice sounded through the line, "We have Terra Shepard's records on-screen now. She doesn't appear to have any family elsewhere in the Alliance. It looks like she's going to have be officially classified as an orphan."_

Terra heard that word and froze. She stood in the doorway of what used to be her room, listening in shock to what came next.

_"We're formally requesting your scouting party deliver her to an Alliance representative so we can transfer her to the adoption network."_

That's when Terra slid the box off to the side and stormed over to Garrus, glaring full force at the COMM line he was keeping open for her. "No! Absolutely not! Forget it!"

_"I'm sorry, who is this?"_

"The _orphan_! The one you seem perfectly content to cast aside as if Mindoir doesn't even exist anymore!"

Garrus looked at her, too stunned to say anything. He had been watching her cry all the way here and now she suddenly had enough fire inside her to make the raid seem tame. Her reaction was wild, but it suddenly seemed like there was more to every human than there appeared.

_"Ms. Shepard, you're emotionally fragile right now. It's probably not the best time to decide—"_

"Don't give me that!" Terra snapped, "If you get to tell a bunch of turians to drag me over there, I get to say 'no!' I am _not_ going into the system, especially when I'm just gonna age out of it in two years! I'm old enough to make my own decisions, and I'm deciding to stay here."

Garrus was tempted to speak up now. She would rather stay _alone_ in a _ghost town_ than go along with the Alliance's rules? Surely there was a middle ground, a better way neither of them could see yet.

_"_Terra_, I know it's hard, but you have to trust us."_

Terra shook her head, stepping back as her rage slowly dissipated. "I know all about hard. …I just watched my entire colony die." So she turned to go back to the box, checking one last time that everything was still intact and in place within.

Garrus watched her carefully for a moment, no longer sure what to expect, before turning back to the COMM channel. "Do you still want me to take her back to the ship?"

_The Alliance official sighed. "Technically, we have the right to force her to return to the Earth, but we can't ask you to arrest her for us. If you can come up with a solution, call us back. Otherwise, keep an eye on her and do what you can to send her our way."_

Garrus acknowledged and let them terminate the call. Once it was disconnected, he turned all his attention to Terra Shepard. Her people had just left her fate in his hands in a way, and he had no idea what to do. The turian way was to do what was demanded of you without question, but the order hadn't come from a turian and she had already refused it. He could do what the Alliance official had suggested and bring her in anyway, but from what he'd seen, she was likely to break out and run at the first opportunity, regardless of whether or not someone so traumatized and untrained could survive more than a day on the streets of Earth alone. Then again, she seemed a lot less fragile than she appeared; she had just _watched_ her family and her entire colony perish and she still stood defiant against those who wanted to decide her future for her. He had to admit, she had surprised and intrigued him. He wanted to find a way to help her. He wanted to give her a third option. He wanted…to…

…oh, this was a stupid idea.

And yet, with a wince, he was doing it. He quickly arranged a private conference call to two separate lines.

His parents.

_"Garrus?" his mother answered, "Is something wrong?"_

Garrus sighed. "You could say that." He explained what had happened and the situation Terra was currently in. "We can't just leave her here, but she's refusing to come with us as long as the Alliance is demanding we send her to Earth."

_"It's not our place to interfere," his father said, "Her people will—"_

_"Castis," his mother cut in, "it's precisely because it's not our place that we have a right to interfere. Garrus, you're sure she can't be convinced?"_

Garrus glanced at Terra as she fought between tears and a mournful glance at the remains of her home. "No. I think her mind is made up."

_"Well, then there's only one thing for it, isn't there?"_

_"What?!" Castis demanded, "We can't just—"_

_"Yes, we can. You'll hardly be inconvenienced, being on duty on the Citadel all the time."_

_Castis didn't argue this time._

Garrus listened to his mother's suggestion. He was a bit shocked at first, but he was also shocked to realize it was what he had been hoping for. So he agreed, finished the call, and carefully approached the human in question.

Terra sighed. "If you're about to suggest I should suck it up and leave, you might as well go. I'm staying."

"Actually," Garrus said hesitantly, "I've been talking to someone else. We think there's somewhere else you can go."

She turned to look at him, curious but concerned. "What do you mean?"

"The Alliance said we didn't have to take you to Earth if we could find another solution. I have one." As her gaze turned slightly hopeful, he resolved that this was what needed to be done and, with a tentative but supportive smile, made his proposal: "…you're welcome to stay with my family on Palaven."


	3. Welcome to Palaven

Chapter 3: Welcome to Palaven

Every tear a vital rain  
Every pain a reason to fight  
Every loss remembered love  
Every fire a source of light

"Are you insane, Vakarian?!" the turian commander snapped even as Terra was loading her box into the cargo hold and checking that her pack was undamaged.

"Possibly," Garrus sighed before steeling himself to outright say what needed to be said: "My parents already OK'd it. I've already contacted the Alliance representative and told him she agreed, and he said it was a perfectly acceptable solution even if they don't have precedent for it. She's from a farming colony, so she can grow food for herself, and she's not going to interfere with any of our operations. Besides, we would already have had to take her to Palaven, so we're saving the trouble of booking her a transport back to Earth when we get there."

The commander was clearly unconvinced but saw he wasn't going to win this one. He shook his head, fighting the urge to keep arguing the matter. "Very well. This is out of the hierarchy's control. But you are watching her until we land."

"Yes, sir." Once the commander went to resume his post at the helm, Garrus turned to start watching her. Even as the other turians were going to resume their posts so they could leave the colony, Terra was sitting on some crates, ignoring their passing glances and keeping an eye on the few belongings she had been able to recover. He had never been in such close contact with a human before, but even he could see the weight upon her, the sorrow in her eyes. He didn't like it. With a resigned sigh, he went over to sit down next to her.

She noticed, but she didn't look at him.

They sat there in silence for the entire duration of the takeoff. When she seemed to tense up at the feeling of the ship rising, Garrus finally started trying to talk to her. "First time on a ship?"

She braced herself as the kinetic stabilizers kicked in, leaving no sign they were moving but the subtle weightless glide of the engine thrust and the hum of the drive core. "Yeah. I was born on the colony. …never left it."

He struggled to formulate a response as she retreated back to her sorrowful, silent stance. Humans had very different social standards than turians. Was he supposed to touch her? Keep trying to talk to her? Leave her alone? Could he just ask her or would that make it worse? He sat there, pondering for a moment, not moving, before he turned to—

"They told you to watch me, didn't they?"

He froze. She asked it so distantly, as if she should be upset but didn't have it in her to be. Part of him was saying he should deny it, that she was too fragile to worry about it. But she deserved the truth after all she had been through. So he sighed and admitted it. "Yeah."

She scoffed, shaking her head. "They don't trust me, huh?" She buried her head in her hands. "I don't know why I agreed to this."

"Hey." He quickly placed his hand on her shoulder, drawing her to face him. "They're just not used to humans, they don't know what to expect. In case you've forgotten, things are a bit tense between our species. But my family knows all of that and they still offered to take you in." He took his hand back, still keeping his eyes on her. "I'm going to look out for you now, OK? So if there's anything I can do, all you have to do is ask. I'll do whatever I can."

She stilled, watching him carefully. He stayed unmoving as she examined him, as she seemed to commit the image to memory. Finally, she shook her head. "Why?"

He gave her a confused glance. "Why what?"

"Why are you doing all this for me?"

He took a moment to consider the answer, seeming to watch her as she had him. With a sigh, he gave the only answer he had: "I don't know. When I found you back there, when I saw what they'd done to your family…nobody deserves that. It wasn't fair. And it wasn't fair for you to be punished for it. I'm just trying to make up for it. I don't care that you're human. I care that someone needs to help you."

It was only when she felt her grief settle slightly within her that she realized how much his actions really meant to her. This _turian_ that she had _never met_ was going out of his way to help her…just because she needed help. After seeing everything fall apart, this was exactly what she needed to keep from losing faith. How could she tell him how much this meant to her? She finally reached over to take his hand in hers. "Thank you."

He glanced down at where she was touching him, wondering at how her hand wrapped around his and what it must mean.

She didn't let go as she sighed, forcing back the returning urge to cry what few tears she had left. "I don't know what I'm going to do now."

He turned his attention from her hand back to her eyes. "There's always a reason to keep fighting. You only have to hope to the spirits you find it someday."

She took the words to heart, but she also cocked her head curiously. "…'spirits'?"

"Yeah. You've never heard of them?"

"Not really. We don't exactly study turian culture in the schools on human farming colonies."

Garrus allowed himself a small snicker. "Right. Sorry."

He spent the next short while explaining the widely-adopted turian religion of the spirits, to which Terra responded by explaining the human religion she had always been taught. Eventually, they started relaying further information of their respective cultures and, slowly, Terra's grief began to fade from the front of her mind. It was still there, but the conversation allowed her to focus on something else and gave her a chance to think that living on Palaven for a while might not be so bad. She barely noticed when they landed and the turians began to head out.

Thankfully, all ships in Council space carried emergency supplies for all races and not just their own, foreseeing exactly this type of scenario (well, perhaps not _exactly _this type of scenario, but still). They were able to retrieve enough levo rations to hold her over until they could establish a means of keeping food on hand for her, and there was an enviro-suit to protect her from the worst of the solar radiation until such time as she adapted to it. She wasn't comfortable in it, but it was better to suffer through it until they reached the safety of his house than to risk getting radiation sickness within five minutes of arrival.

As they made their way from the spaceport to the Vakarian household, Terra was the subject of several more glances from passing turians. This time, she reacted, prompting Garrus to return her earlier gesture and take her hand. She flinched at the contact but didn't let go, clutching his talons as he guided her. Every few seconds, she'd give a concerned glance back to make sure her box was still untouched as she dragged it behind her and her pack was still in place and unopened. Garrus noticed. He didn't try to reassure her—he knew she was going to worry anyway since these things were all she had left of her old life now and at least the concern was drawing her attention away from the confused and suspicious glances they were now receiving for walking side by side, hand in hand, to the outskirts of the city.

When they finally reached their destination, Terra froze.

Garrus let go of her now. "What's wrong?"

She hesitated, not moving or even meeting his eyes.

This time, he thought he understood. Once she walked through that door, after all, there was no going back. And no turians could replace the family she had lost not even 24 hours ago. "I know it's a lot, but you don't have to worry. Like I said, I'm right here."

She simply looked at him. She didn't even know him yet, so the words didn't really change anything, but she did take enough comfort in them to nod and follow him.

So he opened the door and walked in.

As soon as the door opened, an older female turian came into the room. "Garrus." She smiled as he came over to her, laying her head on his briefly. "It's good to see you home again."

"Good to be back, Mom," Garrus answered with a small smile.

His mother simply eyed the door. "Is this her then?"

Garrus turned back to see Terra walking in, pushing her box into a corner to tend to later as the door closed behind her. "Yeah. This is Terra."

The turian woman approached her, giving her an encouraging, sympathetic smile. "I'm Garrus' mother. I'm sorry about what happened."

Terra elected to restrain her desire to voice how apologies meant nothing now. "Thanks for taking me in."

"Of course."

"Did I hear people coming in?" A younger female turian came in from the hall, stopping in her tracks when she saw Terra standing there. "Oh. Mom really wasn't kidding."

The mother in question shook her head. "I'll just put these in the spare room." She reached over to grab the handle on Terra's box and began pulling it down the hall, leaving her two children alone with their new human housemate.

"Wow," the young female turian said, seeming to inspect Terra, "I've never seen a human in person before." She eyed the human as she tentatively drew closer, clearly not noticing the unsettled response she was receiving.

Garrus finally grabbed her by the arm and pulled her a short ways to the side. "Solana, she's not a zoo animal!"

She pulled back. "Right. Sorry." She looked back over at Terra. "Hi. I'm Solana, Garrus' sister."

Terra just nodded. "Terra Shepard."

Solana moved closer, clearly unsure what to do, before placing a tentative hand of comfort on Terra's arm. "Like I said, I'm not that familiar with humans, but…if you need someone to talk to, I'll do what I can."

Terra realized that she actually appreciated the gesture. It didn't make up for what she lost, no one could ever replace her family, but it was nice to know that she already had two people she knew she could count on when she needed them. "…thanks."

Solana simply nodded, offering a small smile.

"Here," Garrus nodded to the hall, "I'll show you your room."

Terra followed without a word. When she arrived at the room in question, she found a small quarters, not quite as big as the room she had on Mindoir, with just a bed, a dresser, and her box unopened on the floor.

"I'm right here if you need anything," Garrus added, pointing to the door directly next to this one.

Terra didn't respond, simply walking into the room and kneeling down to open the box. She reached in to unload the few clothes she had been able to recover to place them in the dresser. Doing so uncovered the rest of the contents, everything she had left of her lost family. Seeing them brought the tears back.

Garrus noticed. He could practically smell her sorrow as the air around her thickened with it. "Do you? Need anything?"

She didn't look at him, her watering eyes focused solely on the remnants of her old life that had been so quickly and suddenly snatched away. "…just some time alone."

He was hesitant to comply after seeing her so broken, but he realized there was nothing he could do. So he nodded and stepped aside to let her door close.

Once he was gone, she sat down on the bed and slowly began to cry one last time.

She wondered if she'd ever find the strength to stop.

_The next morning…_

Supplying a human to live on Palaven was not a simple matter, but it was not difficult to find all the necessary items on the extranet. Some seeds for her to start the garden that would take the place of her family farm, some extra clothes with a thulium layer to wean her off the enviro-suit, a few simple necessities—all 500 credits and 12 hours away.

Garrus retrieved the box when it arrived and made his way down the hall to deliver it, knocking cautiously on the door. "Terra?" No response. Common sense said to leave the box outside her door and deal with it later, but that would just give her a chance to seal herself in there. Considering the state he had left her in, he figured it was better to step in.

He found her curled up on the bed, asleep.

He immediately withdrew his plan to interact with her and knelt down to set the box on the floor by the dresser. But when he knelt down, he found a book and a pencil on the floor. Curious, he picked it up. Glancing at her, he could see her hand was outstretched over the floor where the objects had been, so it was likely she fell asleep holding them and dropped them at some point in the night. He was about to set them down on the dresser when he saw what was in the book.

The book was open to a page covered by a drawing of pure devastation. A young human woman knelt in the middle of a field of bodies, her head hung in despair and her hands outstretched as if they held the blame for the blood that had been shed there. In fact, though the rest of the drawing was in black and white, her shadow and palms were red. Red like human blood.

Garrus marveled at the image. On one hand, the work itself was stunningly detailed and beautifully drawn. On the other hand, it was a visual representation of the immense loss Terra had just experienced. Had she drawn this? Was this how she saw the events of that day? Did she truly feel so lost, so alone, so helpless? …so guilty?

"What are you doing?!"

Garrus nearly dropped the book as he jumped back, startled by the sudden exclamation.

Terra had woken up. She was staring at him, her eyes speaking shock and betrayal in equal measure.

"I…I was just…" He closed the book, reaching the hand it back to her. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

She snatched it back, clutching it to her chest as if her life depended on keeping it close.

He wished he hadn't picked it up now. Seeing the hurt in her eyes, compounded with the fact she refused to look at him now, was enough to make him regret it, realizing just how important it must be to her. However, that was yet more proof it was plainly hers, and his detective side needed confirmation. "Did you draw that?"

She didn't acknowledge the question. She merely stuffed the book back into her pack, along with the tin that she barely opened to replace the pencil she had been using.

"Because it was…amazing but…painful."

"And private." She finally stood up to outright glare at him. "What are you even doing in here?"

"I was just dropping off your supplies." He pointedly nudged the box he had dropped off with his foot.

She glanced at it, still eying him, before reaching down to open it and look in. When she saw what was inside and realized what he had been doing, her ire faded. "…I'm sorry. I…" She took a deep breath to calm herself. "It's gonna take me a while to get used to this."

That much he could understand. After all, it was going to take some time to get used to the idea of a human living in their house.

She knelt down to start sorting through the box, taking note of what was in there. She could make do with the seed selection and a soil treatment, she had already noted a good patch of land out back that could grow her basic food supply (it was her good fortune that the Vakarian family lived on the outskirts of town rather than in the middle of the Cipritine square). The clothes were pretty simple, but it was better than living on what little clothing she was able to recover from her house, especially with the hidden protection from the weakened magnetosphere. As she picked out some to wear for the day that would almost certainly be spent planting, she turned briefly to Garrus. "Thanks." She received merely a nod in response as she stood up to face him properly with her new clothes in hand. "You didn't mean to come spy on me while I was sleeping, right?"

"Actually, I'm a bit surprised you were even still in bed," Garrus pointed out, "Don't all human farmers have that policy about getting up early? What was it, 'the early bird gets the…fish'?"

Terra blinked at him. "…yeah…something like that." She shook it off, setting the clothes down on her pillow. "It was just…a long day yesterday."

It had been, so he had to concede this to her.

She was determined not to break down in front of him again, though. She quickly changed the subject. "So. I met your mom and your sister. Where's your dad?"

"On the Citadel," Garrus answered, "He's C-Sec, so we only see him when he's off-duty. He checked in last night to make sure you were settled in and everything had worked out, so he'll probably be finding some time off to come out."

Terra fought the urge to be stunned by this news. They were turians, after all, and turians were born and bred for duty, so it shouldn't be strange that their duties would separate their families for weeks at a time (as Garrus had just been) or even years (as his father apparently was). But she had only ever known families to travel together. She couldn't imagine growing up with her own father not in the house every day to fill the air with the scent of his cooking from the grains and fruits they had grown themselves. Or her mother not there every morning and every night to play a melody all her own on every instrument they had.

…then again, that was what her life was going to be like now—devoid of that comforting familiarity, that constant artistry amid the toil. Empty.

So much for not breaking down in front of Garrus again. She sat down on the bed and attempted to keep the grief from bringing tears this time.

He quickly placed a hand on her shoulder."I know it hurts. But it's going to get better."

She sighed. "I sincerely doubt that."

He took his hand back, wondering if there was anything he could possibly say or do to help her. He had never experienced something like this, and even if he had, humans dealt with loss differently. It made him wonder just how much she had lost. "…what were they like?"

She turned to look at him then, a confused glance from the corner of her eye.

"Your family."

Those words froze her. She hadn't talked about them since she lost them and the prospect was daunting. But still, she brought herself to answer his question. She gestured to him to sit down with her. She spent the next ten minutes telling him all about how her parents had met, how close she had been to them and Nathan and Violet, how they had all been artists as much as farmers…how she had lost them all.

Garrus just listened. Now that he heard how close she had been to them, how they had been taken from her, he understood. He also knew there really was nothing he could say or do to help her. All he could do was be there when she needed someone to talk to.

Terra finally looked at Garrus completely. "Cherish all the time you can with your family, Garrus." She turned away, tears threatening to drown her eyes once more. "…you never know when you're gonna lose them." She then picked up the clothes draped on her pillow and walked off, leaving Garrus there to think over her words.

And over the broken human he was coming to know.


	4. Bonding

Chapter 4: Bonding

In the hardest trials, we find true strength  
In times of betrayal, true loyalty shines  
Nothing is lost when love lives in memory  
And only from ashes can rise ties that bind

_April 28, 2170…_

Castis Vakarian had never approached his own home so warily. It wasn't that he was unfamiliar with humans in general—he dealt with them on a daily basis in C-Sec—it was that he had no idea what to expect from this particular human. After hearing from his wife how easily and quietly the girl had settled in almost immediately, he had grown less averse to the idea of taking in a human refugee, but he had not exactly had time to grow used to the idea.

When he came up to the house, he quickly took notice of the levo garden in a patch of sun behind the house, already sprouting only three days after it was planted. The sight cemented the permanence of this arrangement in his mind, but he found himself simply shaking his head. This human kept her word and knew what she was doing. He had to respect that.

"Castis," his wife smiled as he entered the house, "you're home."

He smiled back as he laid his head on hers. "I came as soon as I could. I take it our new houseguest is adjusting well enough."

She considered how best to respond for a moment. "That depends on what you would consider 'adjusting well.' She is in a unique situation, I'll remind you."

"Yes, I suppose she is. At least her food supply is growing well."

"It should be. She's been out there with it practically from dawn 'til dusk for the past two days. …I don't know why she bothers when she barely eats anything from what we had flown in."

He simply shrugged. "Humans handle grief differently. Loss of appetite for even weeks at a time is perfectly normal for them."

"This doesn't seem like a normal reaction. It's more like she's punishing herself. Garrus and Solana have both taken to trying to cheer her up, but, as you can imagine, it's not been going so well."

Castis filed the information away as if he was working a case. After all, this was a complex puzzle for a trained investigator. As long as he had agreed to take in the girl, he would have to act as best he could in place of her lost family—they all would.

"So you did make it home." Solana came in from the hall, Garrus close behind, to greet her father.

"I did," Castis answered. After greeting his daughter, he turned to Garrus, who remained coolly leaning on the wall at the end of the hallway. "I see I had no need to rush."

"No," Garrus shook his head, "no major developments." Then he thought that over. "Well, aside from the obvious one, but you know what I mean."

Castis elected to simply nod. During their call to discuss the arrival of their new "houseguest," he had taken the time to ask after how Garrus' first real deployment had gone, but the exchange had been brief and distant. They had never had the closest relationship, and it only seemed to be getting more strained as time went by. But now wasn't the time to worry about that. They already had one issue to attend to. "Is she coming out?"

Garrus turned to glance back at the door. "Doesn't look like it. Don't worry, I'll get her." So he made his way down the hall and only returned when he had a closed-off, displaced 16-year-old human in tow.

The older turian male made use of his experience in this field as he carefully approached her. "Terra, was it?"

She simply nodded. "Terra Shepard."

"I'm Garrus' father. It's nice to meet you."

Terra accepted the greeting more warily than he anticipated. It didn't seem like she was wary of him specifically, either, more like she was wary of everyone. Another piece of the puzzle the cop in him insisted on attempting to solve.

Throughout the day, Castis made several attempts to get acquainted with Terra while he was there to do so. She answered every question either bluntly or vaguely, never truly opening up unless Garrus prodded her. She clearly wasn't yet comfortable around them, though she seemed to be getting used to them and was more likely to respond to Garrus. After a while, Castis made some initial observations: she had survivor's guilt and possibly PTSD, she was refusing to respond to anyone for fear of such a tragedy happening again or possibly as a self-inflicted punishment, and while she was latching onto Garrus, it was likely because she only felt safe around him because he had been the one to save her and bring her here. If they were going to do anything to truly help her—and that was certainly part of the commitment they had made when they agreed to take her in—they were going to have to do it quickly and carefully. And it seemed Garrus was going to have to be the one to do it.

When Terra inevitably slipped away to check on her garden, Castis turned to Garrus to tell him what he had concluded.

Garrus was about ready to snap that she was a human not a psychology experiment before he decided his father had more experience with humans and it was probably best to at least hear him out. "What am I supposed to do that I haven't already tried?"

Castis considered. "Honestly, every human is different. The only thing I can tell you she needs for certain is a friend."

_That I know I'm already trying,_ Garrus thought to himself. Apparently, he'd been treading too carefully. But he didn't want to smother her. Besides, there would always be that one obstacle plaguing their situation: "We can't just replace her family that easily."

Castis shook his head. "Just because we're taking their place doesn't mean we're replacing them."

Garrus held onto that thought for the rest of the day, pondering what he had to do. When Terra finally came back inside and headed straight to the shower without a word to any of them (which was fair enough since she hadn't quite adjusted to the Palaven heat yet and working in it with the added weight of the thulium layer in her new clothes wasn't exactly helping matters), he suddenly realized just how closed-off she had been and just how far he had to go. It wasn't his place to rush her grieving process, but he refused to have gone to all this trouble to help her only for her to fall apart entirely. So he pulled Solana aside after their parents turned in, brought her up to speed, and asked for her help in brainstorming a proper solution.

Solana cast her eyes down the hall as she thought it over.

While she was watching, Terra stepped out of the bathroom. She saw the dim lighting in the master bedroom and briefly peered through the door, just catching a glimpse inside before it closed. What little she saw of the Vakarians' affections, though, stuck with her. Her own parents had been that in love. Fighting painful memories yet again, she forced herself to head back to her own room and seal the door behind her.

Solana saw enough. "She's carrying too much. Time can make that better, but it won't change the fact that she doesn't feel at home here."

"Because this isn't her home," Garrus said, "The only home she ever had was taken from her and we're hardly in a position to fix that."

"We've taken her in already. Why can't we call her family?"

"We don't have the right to. Not just because she'll never let go of her family, either. We're not actually _adopting_ her or even technically fostering her."

"So why don't we? Unofficially, at least."

Garrus gave his sister a curious look. "How do you propose we do that?"

Solana smirked with an idea.

They spent the next hour on the extranet, researching how best to approach the idea. They finally had a plan, one which led them to leave the house the next morning as their father was preparing to head back to the Citadel and find a shop that could fulfill the special order they had in mind. They weren't convinced this would work, but it was definitely the best way they could start.

_May 27, 2170…_

A month had gone by and the only difference seemed to be that Terra's garden was in full bloom. Garrus had been making constant attempts to get her to open up, to make friends with her as his father had suggested. She had started giving him proper responses more often and even seemed to get genuinely comfortable around them all, but she was still keeping her distance overall. He was starting to worry he was fighting a losing battle. It was only when Solana came up to him while he was watching Terra tending her plants and told him that their plan was coming to fruition that he began to gain some hope that things were about to fall into place. The brother and sister headed back to the shop as quickly as they could and returned as Terra was bringing in and taking account of her first harvest.

"Terra?" Solana said as they approached her, "Have you got a minute?"

Terra shrugged as she set a small pile of carrots she had dubbed "adequate" on the kitchen counter to prep for consumption later. "I guess."

"We, uh…" Garrus stepped up reluctantly, "…have something to give you." Ignoring the curious look he received in response, he held out a small box.

She took it tentatively and opened it. She froze when she saw what was inside. It was a necklace made of golden Palaven metals with a charm of Earth gems—sapphires forming the shape of the Vakarians' markings. As she carefully removed it from the box, she looked at it in wonder.

"We thought you should have something to help you feel more like you belong here," Solana explained, "This was the best way we could find to…well, 'bridge the gap,' I guess you could say."

"We would have had it sooner," Garrus shrugged, "but it was a very specific request for a turian jeweler."

Terra clutched the necklace close as she looked at them both, her bright blue eyes still wide in astonishment. "You had this made for me?"

They both simply nodded.

So she set the box aside, laying the necklace there beside it for a moment. Then she did the last thing either of them expected and hugged them both. "Thank you."

Neither of them responded at first. Turians didn't do this and it was the first time she had. But they could tell this was a show of gratitude and carefully returned the embrace. Solana eventually cast a sideways smirk at Garrus as if to say "I told you this would work." He responded in kind as if to say "Shut up."

Terra finally stepped back and turned to retrieve the necklace from where she'd set it down, wrapping it around her neck.

Solana smiled. "Good to see you like it."

Terra allowed a brief smirk to escape. "We'll see if it works like you hope it will."

"Well, like we said, we're here for you if it doesn't." So she placed her hand on Terra's shoulder in a brief display of comfort and support before heading down the hall to her room.

Garrus lingered for a moment before deciding there was nothing to say and he should leave her to finish seeing to her food supply. He started to walk off, content to think they had made progress.

"You still haven't told me what they mean."

He stopped, turning back to her in confusion. "What?"

Terra fingered the charm on her necklace. "The marks." She gestured vaguely in his direction in case he still didn't see what she meant.

He simply gestured to her vegetable stack in return. "You aren't too busy?"

She glanced at the counter. Then she shrugged. "They'll keep."

He smiled, nodding her over to the couch in the living room. Once she was sitting there with him, he explained how the turians had established colonies long before they made first contact with the asari, how the colonies had become isolated and turned on each other, how each colony's population had adopted the facial markings to show which side they were on, how a war had broken out that devastated the populations until the Hierarchy finally stepped in and united them.

When the story was over, Terra gave him a questioning look. "If all this happened almost 2000 years ago and the factions are so completely dissolved and interspersed now, why do you still use the markings?"

Garrus shrugged. "They were part of our society by then. It's cultural tradition. If a turian doesn't have any, they're not to be trusted."

Terra considered this, looking down at her necklace in a new light. This really was their way of adopting her. This marked her as a Vakarian, or as close to it as she could be. It suddenly dawned on her how serious they were about the arrangement they had made when they took her in. And how much she wanted to live up to it. So she turned to Garrus with new purpose. "I want to hear more."

"About what?" he asked.

"All of it. If I'm going to be living here with you, I want to do it right. I want to see your world. I want to learn all I can about your culture. …and I want to tell you all about mine."

Garrus was stunned at first. However, this did mean she was finally on the road to opening up and accepting them as part of her life. He wasn't about to turn her down. "OK. I'll show you around Cipritine and you can ask me whatever you wanna know."

When Terra went to bed that night, things seemed brighter. She still felt the weight of Mindoir bearing down on her, but the path she had to carry it down no longer seemed quite so bleak. She found she was looking forward to when Garrus Vakarian would show her the sights.

_June 5, 2170…_

Cipritine was silver and disciplined. Palaven's consideration as a tourist attraction was not as great as Thessia, never mind the Citadel, but it still had some landmarks worth visiting, and the capital city was certainly a sight to see. Terra had to strain to see even the faintest resemblance to human city structure (then again, she had never been terribly familiar with big cities either since Mindoir was only populated with villages and small towns). When they walked through it the day she came, she had been too distraught to take it all in, but now she could see the lights and the heights and the life behind it all.

As Garrus led her around, ignoring passing suspicious glances from the other turians, she peppered him with questions about how their society was structured, the history of the city, what the flora and fauna of Palaven consisted of. He answered every question, sometimes patiently and sometimes amusedly, occasionally taking her up on her offer to answer his questions about her people. He actually found himself enjoying the entire conversation.

It didn't take long for Terra to ask to see some turian art or hear some turian music. She seemed sad to hear that turian art museums were not exactly commonplace, though she believed she had a feel for it already through examining the architecture, and any turian music they were likely to hear in the city around this time would be a bit too military for her tastes. She resolved to look up some examples for herself on the extranet later and let him decide where to go next. She followed him to the city center, marveling at the building he told her housed Palaven Command. In a way, it was similar to the government buildings on Earth she had seen pictures of. If this was the seat of the hierarchy itself, she could see why the turians lived the way they did.

As Terra sat down to rest her feet (she wondered at how turians could get around so easily with their feet angled like that) and Garrus sat down next to her, she turned her attention from the city itself to the people in it. Several passing turians were still sending cautious or even distasteful glances her way—the ones that were deigning to acknowledge her presence, that is. The gravity of this suddenly came over her, drawing her to sigh. "I take it humans don't usually come through here."

Garrus shook his head. "No, most humans stay away. Though, for similar reasons, you don't see many turians on Earth."

She knew the reasons he meant. The First Contact War had driven turians and humans to resent each other with a fiery passion. The thought that something that happened 13 years ago could still be coloring the perspective of two different species so tremendously seemed utterly ridiculous, but some human cultures had turned on each other for decades or even centuries for opposing each other in such conflicts and this was an even greater hurdle to overcome. But it made her wonder… "What exactly happened during the war?"

Garrus was not expecting this particular question. "You don't already know?"

"I know what they tell us in human school. I wanna hear from a turian."

He understood her intentions, so he went along with it: "We were scouting the area and saw a human vessel approaching an unmapped relay. That's illegal in Council space because of the Rachni Wars, so we opened fire to scare them off. They fired back. We took that as a declaration of war and cut loose, since we don't believe in small-scale conflict. That's when we occupied Shanxi, because we didn't expect the Alliance to have so many reinforcements. We were gearing up for a proper offensive when the Council caught wind of what happened and stepped in."

She shook her head. "So you hear humanity was careless. We hear that we were scouting space we'd already claimed when the first alien force we'd ever seen opened fire on us without provocation or warning. I'm not sure if the turians are twitchy with the offensive or if humanity is just quick to point fingers."

He scoffed. "Or both."

"It was still a misunderstanding. That shouldn't be all we think of when we look at each other."

He gave her a curious look. "What else could we see?"

She answered with a look that almost seemed admiring. "You didn't just see some human when you pulled me out of that hole, Garrus. …and I didn't just see a turian when I let you."

He hadn't thought of it that way. He hadn't cared that she was human, he had only cared that she needed help. It was only now that he was realizing any other turian might have either simply left her there or dragged her back to the Alliance kicking and screaming. In fact, if their positions had been switched, he wondered if any human but her would have been willing to do the same for him. All this for something they had no part in. She was right that there was a better way. But she saw as well as he did that there was no changing the way things were. That "misunderstanding" had led to casualties on both sides. Establishing trust would be a long, hard road.

If only Garrus and Terra could be a proper example of how things _could_ be.

Terra finally sighed and stood up. "Come on. It's getting dark."

Garrus nodded and got up to lead her back home.

Home. He smiled to think that it was her home, too, now. And that he was proud to say so.


	5. Learning

Chapter 5: Learning

We gain knowledge from teachers  
We gain experience from work  
We gain wisdom from life  
But what matters most we learn from love

_June 19, 2170…_

Garrus wasn't sleeping tonight. It wasn't that he was plagued with nightmares or that something was particularly bothering him, it was more that he just plain couldn't rest. He'd been lying here for nearly two hours, passing glances at the stars out the window every so often, with no sign of dozing off. Strangely, this fight with his lack of sleep was also somehow making him less tired. He finally got out of bed and stepped out of the room. He stepped carefully down the hall so as not to wake the other residents, heading around to the back to step outside—

He stopped dead in his tracks when he reached the back door.

Terra sat by the door, looking out a window at the stars.

Garrus cocked his head, wondering what she was doing, before quietly approaching. "Couldn't sleep?"

Terra turned to look at him as he came to sit down next to her. "Not really."

"Yeah, me neither." He followed her gaze out the window, looking up at the stars. "Does this help you or—?"

"—haunt me?" she sighed, "Both. I love watching them, love looking for new constellations. …but it makes me miss the ones I know. I feel like I'll never see them the same way again."

He was about to make a sarcastic comment that she couldn't anyway because some of them might be dead by the time the light reached them, but seeing the look on her face silenced him. Yet again, he wasn't sure what he could say to cheer her up. But after two months, he was learning. "You must have some good memories with them."

She tried to think of it that way, to remember the happy times and not lose herself in how they were gone. "Yeah. Nathan was always telling the stories behind them. Mom had about a dozen pieces inspired by them. Dad and Violet just loved to watch them. I would…" She trailed off. This part she had been shying away from.

He noticed, though, and he had been doing his best for some time now to keep her from closing up again. "What?"

She hesitated. She hadn't been drawing much since that sketch of sheer despair she had poured out the night she came here. She especially hadn't been telling him about it or letting him see any of her other works. But now…now she found herself taking a deep breath to brace herself and reaching into her pack to pull out her sketchbook, opening it to the page bearing the picture she had drawn the night of her last birthday and handing it to him. "I would do this."

He froze at first. After she had reacted so harshly the first time he touched this book, he had never brought it up again. Now she was offering to show it to him. This had to mean something. Still, he wasn't going to upset her again by refusing, so he carefully took the book in hand and held it in the moonlight. Again, he was astonished by the skill behind it. He was even more amazed when he saw that this one carried not the weight of angst and mourning but a wonder and beauty that truly captured the horizon it portrayed. "Terra, this…this is incredible."

She gave him a look of gratitude before carefully taking the book back and placing it back in her pack. "My family always complemented my work, said I should do more with it. I was planning to, but…well…" She looked back at the stars, coming to a conclusion she felt she should have reached long ago: "I can't let what happened stand in my way. I need to get back to it. Palaven isn't exactly short on sights to capture."

He smiled. "I could show you some of them. It'd mean going a bit farther away from the city, but you'd love it."

"You know, I just might. I looked into some turian art, by the way. You were right there's not as much of it as I'd like, but what I've seen is pretty outstanding. They should take as much pride in that as they do in their military prowess."

He scoffed, fighting a laugh. "The day turian-kind as a whole declares they're better at music than warfare is the day Palaven's moons crash into each other."

She shook her head. "Yet another reason to think our species have a lot to learn from each other. You can learn a culture's entire religious views, societal history, and emotional range just by looking at their artwork or hearing their music. It's a universal language, like math. You can't just devalue your own. That's like calling Beethoven 'just some deaf guy.'"

He elected not to question her comparison, instead asking for an elaboration. "I've never thought of it that way. Humans study art as a historical record?"

"Actually, even we don't do it as vigorously as we should. But even a casual observer could tell. In the Middle Ages, when our societies were plagued with war and ignorance and…well, literal plagues, the music was dark and hopeless and solitary. Then the Renaissance happened and suddenly all the art has color and the music has feeling. As time went by, the art changed with it—the revolutions changed the structure of composition, the Victorian era showed a fascination with the unknown and led to great innovations, modern times have become a matter of maintaining the classics versus incorporating every new height we can reach. Archaeologists learn more about a culture from some recovered pottery and architecture than they do from actual historical records. We—" She suddenly realized just how passionate she was getting about this topic and just how intrigued Garrus was staring at her. "…let's just say it was big deal for my family."

"Clearly. I only hear someone go that deep when Dad is talking about work."

Terra gave him a small smile.

Garrus blinked, smirking. "What was that?"

She quickly stopped. "What was what?"

"Did you just smile?"

She just looked away.

"Wow. That's the first time I've ever seen that."

She couldn't resist letting it return then. "…it's the first time I've been able to do it." She suddenly realized that she didn't mind. She suddenly realized just how much she appreciated the turian who was sitting with her. "…Garrus…"

He looked at her expectantly.

"…thank you. For being there for me. I never would've gotten through these past few months—probably not even gotten out of that ditch—without you."

He simply smiled. "It was the least I could do. And if you ever need anything, I'm right here."

Terra shook her head. "Yeah, I know, you keep saying that." _And,_ she reminded herself, _he keeps _meaning_ it._ He had stood by her through all this as if he had known her his whole life. He'd been a friend when she had no one. That meant something. It also shed some light on something she had learned in that time. "…you were wrong, by the way."

Garrus looked at her, confused. "About what?"

"The pain, the loss…it _doesn't _get easier." She placed her hand against her necklace, which he was beginning to think she would never take off. "But you find strength in pain. And it does get easier to carry it." She then turned to face him completely, laying her hand on his. "And I hope you realize that I found my strength because of you."

Those words meant a lot to him. He realized now how thankful he was that she had come into his life, despite the circumstances that had brought them together. She'd been a friend he could rely on, someone he could talk to when he couldn't go to anyone else. So he took her hand entirely and showed it. "And I hope you realize that I haven't regretted what I did that day for one second."

Terra smiled again. There was something about him that made it easier to do that now. "Sometimes things just work out for better."

"Good to see you're finally looking at it that way," Garrus commented, "I'm sure the spirits are watching over you."

"You mean God is watching over me?" Terra countered.

He winced. He'd forgotten her people believed something different. "Right. Sorry, I—"

Terra suddenly started snickering.

"…what? What is it?"

"I just thought of something." As the idea grew on her, her snickering turned to contemplation and she turned to give it to him: "What if we're both right? Like…what if what my people call angels are actually your spirits? And maybe the turians have just been so in touch with the spirits that they've forgone the fact that a higher power is guiding them while the humans have been so focused on that higher power that they've largely dismissed the spirits."

Garrus considered this. "That's certainly an interesting theory."

"Well, we can't disprove it anymore than we can prove which of us is right otherwise."

He smirked. "No, I guess no one can."

Terra looked out at the stars. As she watched them shine, she considered the matter further until she ultimately reached a conclusion. "I like that idea. It just feels right, you know? I've always kind of felt there was more to nature, some kind of connection between it all, a sort of sense of being…as if everything was alive in its own way and we just couldn't see it."

Garrus thought it over for himself and found he agreed. "You might have a point, actually. It's nice to know there's something past the stars looking out for you. Someone that even the spirits look up to."

"So it's settled then. We're officially the first to take the greater aspects of two different species' chief religions and find how they're actually one."

"Or we just spontaneously created our own using each other's."

"Potato, potahto."

"Huh?"

"Farmer thing."

He shook his head. He'd already concluded he'd never quite understand everything she said. Instead of trying, he turned back to the window, looking up at the stars and seeing for the first time just why the humans had so long believed their God had set them in place.

She sighed almost wistfully. "Yeah…I need to draw this. Just as soon as you show me the constellations and tell me what they mean."

He nodded. "I can do that. Just remember, we're still trading, so you'll have to give me some of yours."

She shrugged. "I plan to."

After a moment of stargazing, he had the thought to check the time. It was coming up on 0300. "Ah. We better head back to bed."

"If you say so," she consented, "but I'm not counting on having a restful sleep either way."

"Is there something you can do to fix that?"

Terra smiled. "You're right here, remember?" Placing her hand on his arm gratefully, she made her way back to her room.

Garrus smiled to himself as she left, casting one last glance up at the stars before heading off to sleep.

_July 2, 2170…_

Terra sat next to the garden that had been sustaining her, breathing in the Palaven air. She was almost adjusted to the heat and the radiation now (though she was still sticking to thulium-lined clothes just to be safe), and after her midnight chat with Garrus, she had found a new appreciation for this world's landscape and sky. For the first time in two months, she found herself reaching into her pack and pulling out her sketchpad and the pencil box her sister had made her. She had, almost immediately after receiving it, painted it with a wolf howling at the moon, all the while wondering if she would be constantly changing the design. Now she ignored her own personalization to open the box and newly enjoy the sound of Violet's playing their mother's song on the piano. She didn't cry this time. Progress. After a few measures, she pulled out the pencil she needed first, set aside the box, and set to sketching.

Just as she was finishing the drawing, Garrus walked over. "Hard at work, I see."

"Ha, ha."

"Isn't it kind of late, anyway? What happened to 'early bird gets the fish'?"

"Yeah, well, the second mouse gets the cheese."

Garrus just blinked at her. "…what?"

Terra looked at him for a second. "…it…I'll explain later."

He shook his head and went over to sit down next to her. "I see you really are back at it."

She smiled somberly. "It's too much a part of me to stay away forever."

"Gotta admit, I'm kind of jealous. I always wanted to learn how to paint."

She froze and turned to look at him. "_What_?"

"Really. Like you said, I admired some of the turian art already out there, wanted to make some of my own."

"Uh-huh. And what happened to that turian mantra about the _art_ of battle?"

"Yeah, well, that's mostly just painting the walls with your enemies' blood."

"Right. 'Cause that's the image I need in my head right now."

"Hey, you've seen worse." Only when he saw her tense up and almost drop the sketchbook entirely did he realize what he'd said. "…I'm sorry, I didn't—"

"It's fine." Still, she gave one last stroke of the pencil before turning to place it back in the box, not opening it enough to let the song play this time. After that, she simply sat there and looked over her work, fighting the way the pain of the previous page seemed to call out to her. She finally sighed and started to close the book and set it aside.

He stopped her before she could, keeping it on the page she'd been working on. He looked it over, finding a representation of the Palaven landscape in stunning detail. "…you did this?"

She let go of it, letting him see it properly. "Yeah."

He had been impressed by the other two pictures he'd seen in this book, but this one was truly breathtaking to his eyes. It gave him a new appreciation for the landscape he'd been living beside for so long, as if human eyes saw it in different colors and she had perfectly portrayed it. Looking at her expectantly, he gestured to the page. Catching on to what he was asking, she smiled and nodded. So he carefully pulled the page out and placed it in his pocket. If ever the day came that they left Palaven, he'd have that to remind him of home. …and if ever the day came that they separated, he'd have it to remind him of her. Once the page was carefully secured, he then walked away, letting her close the sketchbook and put it away before stepping over to a nearby rock and pulling out a sniper rifle.

Terra smirked at him. "Going hunting, huh? Maybe you can catch me some meat suitable to my own biology."

"After six months living here," Garrus remarked as he set up his rifle and prepared his firing position, "I'd think you'd know that those don't come on Palaven."

"After six months of eating nothing but what I can grow in a garden this small, you'd be desperate, too."

"I'm just amazed you could get anything in an environment you're not native to."

"Back home, I learned to be ready for anything. Even this."

"You're surprisingly well-prepared for such specific circumstances," Garrus commented as he peered down the scope of his sniper rifle and fired.

The shot flew 200 meters and hit a bottle he'd planted there as a target.

Terra looked at this in amazement. "Whoa! How'd you do that?!"

"Just takes practice," Garrus answered.

She watched him go through the rest of his makeshift driving range practically without blinking. Now she was the one impressed with his skill. She had heard him mention he was chosen for that scouting mission because of his sniper training, but she hadn't realized how good he was. Maybe he really could've done something if he had arrived at Mindoir just a little earlier. Maybe…

She froze at the thought that struck her now. Last year, she would have shuddered just at considering this and said she would never resort to it. But now…now she _had to_.

Terra finally stepped over to him and placed a hand on his gun. "Tell you what: I'll teach you how to paint…if you teach me how to shoot."

Garrus looked at her in shock.

He saw a familiar determination in her eyes. A determination never to be helpless again, never again to watch the people she cared for suffer, never to be afraid like she was in that dirt alcove under that hill.

He finally lowered his rifle and turned to face her completely. "…deal."

_July 5, 2170…_

Garrus stood behind Terra, reaching around her to show her how to hold the weapon in her hands. "Hold it steady. Keep your finger by the trigger. Watch where you're aiming." Once he was certain she had a proper grip on the gun, he pressed his hand over her diaphragm. "Breathe in, pull, breathe out. Breathe in, pull, breathe out."

Terra peered down the scope…aimed…and fired.

She hit the rock about five feet from the bottles.

She groaned, lowering the rifle. "Three days and I still can't make it at 20 meters. I'm never gonna get this!"

"Hey!" Garrus stepped up to stare her down, "_Do not _give up on yourself. It took me near on two weeks just to hit the target in the first place outside of dumb luck. Another four days to hit more than one in a row. I've been at this for years to get where I am and you're already learning faster than I did. You can do this. And I'll be here to help you every step of the way."

Terra looked at him for a moment before turning away. She looked down at the rifle in her hands as if looking it over would determine if she was truly capable of using it or not. Or as if simply touching it had been a mistake. Finally, she sighed and set it down. "I'm not as brave as you are, Garrus. If you saw what I lived through…"

Garrus reached over to place his hand on hers. "No one should have to go through that. But it brought you here. And believe me when I say I'm proud to call you a member of our family."

Terra smiled at him, brighter than he'd seen since she came to his home. She placed her other hand over his for a moment before reaching over to pick the rifle back up. Once Garrus took a step back to give her room, she peered down the scope and aimed.

The shot went off and flew right through the bottle, shattering it completely.

Terra burst with joy at her victory. "Yes!"

"Ha!" Garrus smirked, "What do you know? Guess I am a good teacher."

"Well—!" Terra turned to him and shoved him.

He laughed to himself as he pushed her off. "…it helps that I have a good student."

She smirked back. "Don't you forget it."

He laughed outright this time. She was finally seeming more like herself and he was finding that he liked who she was. It made him wish he'd had the chance to know her before all this.

After a few more wide shots and one lucky shot that hit closer to the center of the target, she told him she had to rest for a while and went off to tend her garden.

As he was placing his rifle back where he'd stashed it, he watched her work. She knew how to feed the soil to help the crops grow faster and she had them partitioned off so that said soil wouldn't mix with the dextro-native ground that was probably rich in dextro-native weeds. It was only as she started watering that he noticed something odd. "Wait. Why are these not in with the others?"

She glanced over at where he was pointing, saw the patch of plants, and shrugged it off. "Those aren't for me."

He looked between her and the crops in question for a second of confusion. Then he made the connection. "Wait a minute, _this_ is _dextro_?"

"Yes. I figured if I'm going to be living here, I might as well make myself useful. Haven't you noticed that your mom hasn't had to buy vegetables for nearly two months?"

He just blinked in amazement. "…well, the turian diet is largely meat-based, so I wasn't really paying attention."

She rolled her eyes, shaking her head. "Strange, you're usually the analytical one." She stepped aside to set down the water. "Sniper's eye, steady hands…" Then she reached behind her supply crate to bring out a paint set and a blank sketchpad. "…perfect for an artist."

He looked between the materials and her for a moment, unsure how to respond. "Terra, we don't have to—"

"Yes, we do. We made a deal. I keep my promises."

He smiled at the sentiment but was reluctant to follow through. "Really, I…I wouldn't even know where to start if we…" He trailed off when he saw that she was smirking at him as if to keep from laughing. "What?"

"Garrus Vakarian," she prodded, "are you _nervous_?"

He flinched back when she said that. "No! No, of course not. It's just…" He sighed. "You were born with a natural talent. I…wasn't."

She stepped over to place a comforting hand on his arm. "You don't know that. You haven't tried yet." So she pushed the supplies into his hands. "Come on." She walked over to where she had sat three days ago to make her drawing, prompting him to follow and sit beside her. "This one's up to you." As he took his position next to her, she showed him how to open her paint box. "Choose your weapon."

Just looking at the vast array of supplies she had in there made him reluctant, but he went along with it. "Terra, I really don't think—"

"No. _Don't_ think. Feel it."

He took a few deep breaths, kept her words in mind, and set to work. He followed her guidance through the basics until he had a grasp of what he was trying to do. Then it was just a matter of translating the image he had in mind and not caring when he inevitably screwed it up. It was only when he stopped for a moment to rest his hand that he realized he was working in silence and turned to ask Terra if everything was OK. She wasn't there. "Terra?"

She came back when she heard him calling for her. "See? You didn't even need me to show you."

He scoffed. "That's debatable."

She looked over what he had, a passable imitation of the landscape she'd drawn if lacking in detail. Seeing his point, something occurred to her. "One second." She headed back inside, returning with a paper in tow. "This was in my dad's workbook. It's the first thing I ever drew."

He took one look at it and almost burst out laughing before he realized that might be offensive and clapped his hand over his mandibles.

She just rolled her eyes. "Go on. Laugh. I know I have."

"No, really, it's…a very convincing self-portrait."

"It's a stick figure."

"Well, sure, but you were, what, two?"

"Three, but that's beside the point." She set the picture down, turning all her attention to him. "It takes time to cultivate _any_ talent. The question isn't if you're any good. It's if you like doing it and want to get better." Leaving him to consider this, she gathered up her things to carry them back inside. "We'll see how it goes tomorrow."

As she headed back inside, he thought it over. He wasn't so sure about himself…but he knew he wanted to learn from her as much as he taught her.


	6. Purpose

**Review replies:**

**Bler - Well, you gotta remember that this is being written by someone who doesn't know guns, so I only went with the basics and, apparently crucially, skipped the actual start of the lessons. Plus, it's nearly 200 years in the future when the technology has changed quite a lot and they're using a turian rifle. So...details. Take it out on the author, not on Garrus. :3**

**[guest] - No real inspiration, I just came up with the idea and loved it enough to run with it. It sort of took on a life of its own.**

**Anyway, back to the story and happy Halloween!**

Chapter 6: Purpose

When we are lost and hopeless  
When silence is our only song  
Before despair can hollow us  
We are called to where we belong

_August 21, 2170…_

When Solana stepped outside to see Terra firing a rifle at some bottles 50 meters off and Garrus leaning against a rock with a sketchpad in hand, she legitimately thought the world had turned upside-down. She quickly made her way over to Terra and outright asked "Did you two switch bodies when I wasn't looking?"

Terra smirked. "We've just been teaching each other a few tricks."

Solana shook her head. "You two are terrible influences on each other."

"Or the best."

Solana glanced over at Garrus while Terra was scoping out her next target, watching him thoughtfully examine one of Terra's pieces before attempting one of his own…and noticing when he looked up at Terra's shot and cast a proud look her way when she made it. Solana smiled at the scene before turning back to Terra. "You two are actually really good for each other. I know he's helped you through some hard times and all, but…he's a lot happier with you than he was before."

Terra slowly lowered the rifle, turning a glance to Garrus. She knew they were close, but she hadn't considered that he had had a rough time before she came into his life. Maybe they were meant to find each other that day. Though if that was the case, she wished there had been a better way of bringing them together.

"And…" Solana added, "…I hope you know that…I'm also glad you came here."

Terra answered by giving Solana a grateful smile. "You've been a good friend to me, too, Sol. Almost like a sister."

Solana smiled back. "Never thought I'd like a human so much. Almost makes me wish we were sisters. To be honest, I always kind of wanted one."

Terra sighed sadly. "I wish you could've met mine. But trust me, a brother is good, too. …most of the time."

Solana laughed. "We should have a talk one night, I can tell you about when Garrus and I were kids."

Terra snickered. "I might actually pay to hear that."

"You know I can hear you both over there!" Garrus snapped from the rock.

Terra winced. "Right. I forget turians have super senses."

Solana shook her head. "We can always do that thing I never had a sister for. What do humans call it? 'Girl talk'?"

Garrus quickly closed the sketchbook and moved out of hearing range.

Solana smirked. "See? Problem solved."

Terra laughed. "Funny, Vi and I used to do that to Nate all the time."

Solana laughed with her.

The two of them spent the next several minutes sitting on the ground by the house, simply talking and enjoying each other's company. As much as Terra clung to Garrus, she found there were things she could only talk about with Solana. No one could take Violet's place, but it was still nice to have someone she could call "sister" again. She had been happier with Garrus, but it was only with Solana that she had proper fits of delighted laughter. It was kind of fun.

"Having a sister is nice," Solana smiled as the conversation began to wind down.

Terra smiled back. "It really is. …I miss mine."

Solana nodded solemnly. "She's still alive, right? Maybe—"

"No. Don't do that. I already heard from the Alliance. My parents' accounts were transferred to me and they have no way of tracking down the slavers. Even if they did, things are too risky in batarian space right now." She sighed sadly. "I'm not gonna see her again. I have to live with that."

Solana took her hand, a small comfort she had come to realize was necessary for grieving humans. "So…have you thought about what you're going to do now?"

Terra only now realized… "I haven't, actually. I guess that's another thing that's been too hard. I always thought I'd be on Mindoir as long as my family was there, focused on my art. I have no idea what I could do now."

"You've got options."

"I doubt that. Most of what I could do would require a college education I can't afford or me leaving Palaven."

That drew Solana's full attention. "You wanna stay here."

Terra answered with a contemplative look of affirmation. "I have every intention of staying wherever Garrus is. I've gotten a bit too reliant on you both to go without."

Solana wasn't sure if she should be concerned or flattered. "That's a nice thought, but we're only ever an extranet call away. You don't have to frame your whole life around us."

"Believe me, Sol, _that_ decision was made for me the second your brother landed on my world."

There was no arguing with that, so Solana backed off, deciding to aim for the "flattered" response. "Alright. What could you do on Palaven then?"

"Exactly."

Solana simply glanced over at the garden. "If you ask me, you could really contribute to the agricultural facilities."

Terra scoffed. "I would love to, but think it through. The hierarchy is just gonna let a human into one of their most important functions?"

Solana smirked almost mischievously. "Dad is friends with the Primarch. Name your price."

Terra laughed. "I appreciate the thought, but I doubt that'll get me so far."

"Maybe. But it'll get you far enough to consider it." She laid a hand on Terra's shoulder. "You might not look it, but you're turian enough now to stand with us. If the Hierarchy can't see that after you've lived as one for so many months, they're the ones paying the price for it."

Terra was flustered by the sincerity behind this argument. From Garrus, it was one thing, but from Solana? "…you think pretty highly of me."

Solana beamed. "You make it easy." Before Terra could respond, she got back on her feet. "I should get going. It was nice talking with you."

Terra smiled as she stood up with her. "You, too, Sol." She hugged her.

Solana was used to this enough by now that she knew to return the embrace. She headed back inside certain that, no matter what others might think, they were sisters in the ways that mattered.

Terra stood out there alone for a minute, thinking over everything Solana had told her, before she saw Garrus coming back. "Could you still hear us or do you just have a good sense of timing?"

Garrus shrugged. "Bit of both." He stepped over to hand her the sketchbook. "Seeing as how you're improving your accuracy and range all on your own and you outright told me you can't take me any further, I guess this means our deal is over."

"Actually," she suggested, not even bothering to take the book from him, "I was thinking now we've both got a handle on things, we should wind down the deal a bit."

Garrus gave her a curious look. "What do you mean?"

"You teach me some CQC, I show you how to draw."

He smiled lightly before setting everything aside. "Alright. Let's do it." So he led her to a more clear area and gestured to her to get into position. "Gotta hand it to you, you're really committed to making something of yourself despite it all."

She smirked playfully. "Yeah, well, that's one thing turians and humans have in common: nothing keeps us down."

_October 30, 2170…_

Terra was lying in bed, coughing almost violently into the pillow.

Garrus was kneeling beside her, rubbing his hand along her back. "Are you sure you're OK?"

She moaned. "I am not."

He sighed as he checked her over for the third time. "You're sure this isn't life-threatening, right? Or contagious cross-species? Because I could go get a doctor; surely, one of them has experience with human physiology."

"It's just a virus. I just need to rest for a few hours."

"How did you even get a levo-affecting virus on Palaven in the first place?"

"I don't know!"

He stood up, wondering if he should be extranet-searching for remedies. "Is there anything you need from me?"

"No." She smiled to him. "But I feel better with you here."

Garrus hesitated to respond to that. "…uh…yeah, we need to talk about that. Terra…military command called me in for another scouting mission. I'm being deployed in two days."

Terra's eyes went wide in alarm. "What?!" She started to get up only to groan and duck back into her pillow, grabbing a clenching stomach.

"I'm sorry, I meant to tell you, it's just…I didn't wanna upset you while you were already sick and—"

"How long are you gonna be gone?" she asked as she struggled to face him properly without setting off her symptoms again.

He shook his head. "About two months, probably."

The look she gave him now was equal parts betrayal and grief.

"I'll still be in contact. I was going to have to go eventually, I'm still a soldier."

Terra just looked at him weakly. "What happened to 'if you ever need anything, I'm right here'?"

Garrus had no response to that. "…Terra, this is out of my hands."

She just lied back down, utterly miserable. "A lot of things are. I thought I finally had one thing that wasn't."

Garrus sighed sadly. "Just get some rest." He started to walk off. Only for something to yank him back. He turned to see his right wrist handcuffed to the bed. "_Terra_!"

Terra just started laughing.

"How did you even do that?!"

"Don't ask."

"Terra, this isn't funny! Take these off!"

"Not for three days," she "whined" as she curled up against the pillow wearily.

"Terra, I'm serious, you have to—" He stopped when he noticed she wasn't responding. "…_I know you're not asleep_!"

_November 1, 2170…_

Garrus sat on the scout ship, rubbing his right wrist. After nearly two hours of unsuccessfully trying to talk Terra into giving him the key, he'd had to call in Solana, wait for her to stop laughing at his ordeal, and have her pick Terra's pockets for it. He was now fairly convinced he was never going to live down this incident with either of them.

"Course is plotted through Citadel space," one of the other scouts said, throwing the memories from Garrus' mind and returning it to the mission at hand, "Guess we're not likely to see any action this time."

"You never know these days," another scout replied.

Garrus kept that in mind, turning to start checking on his rifle. It hadn't seen any recent use, but it was always worth checking that the weapon your life might depend on one day was in good condition.

"First tour, rookie?" a recon scout asked when she noticed him fiddling with his gun.

"Second," he answered without even taking his eyes off his work. He had enough technical training to know what he was doing, after all, and he knew better than to get distracted.

"Oh? See anything interesting along the way?"

He waited until he was satisfied with his weapons check before setting down his rifle to answer properly. "We only touched down once aside from the resupplies. But that one was on Mindoir."

Now he'd piqued the interest of the entire conversing group of scouts.

"Really?" one asked, "You were on _that_ ship? Word got around it was pretty bad."

Garrus nodded. "Batarian slavers raid an entire colony, it doesn't usually end well."

"At least it was only a human colony," a scout leaning against the opposite wall shook his head.

Garrus didn't react well (though he was pretty restrained, considering the circumstances). His talons tightened around his seat so sharply that he was pretty sure he would have crushed the rifle between his hands had he not put it down. He took a deep breath to steady himself before standing up and turning to look at the offending turian. "I'm sorry, Kyrix, what was that?"

Merek Kyrix, a scout of almost two dozen tours, shrugged off the question, apparently somehow missing the rage in Garrus' sub-vocals that some of the others were giving curious reactions to. "Only casualties from that raid were those overreaching humans, and they brought it on themselves."

Garrus could feel his talons digging into his palms, making him glad he was wearing gloves rather than letting them carve into the flesh between his plates. He wanted to punch the guy unconscious and scream at him that those humans shouldn't have had to pay for a government decision they weren't involved in, no matter if it was mistaken or not; that nothing justified slaughtering and enslaving countless _civilians_; that the blood of the family of one of the people he cared most for was shed on that soil though they had never done anything to deserve—!

He quickly cooled himself down, unclenching his talons. Hitting this guy wasn't going to make anything better and there was nothing he could say to change his mind. No sense making the entire tour a nightmare for himself the day they set off just because the crew roster was…unfortunate.

"You OK there, rookie?" the recon scout spoke up.

"Fine," Garrus said, shaking his head "Just—" He stopped when he heard something. "…did you hear that?"

Some of them responded to the affirmative. A clattering sound had come from the cargo hold.

Garrus readied his sidearm. "I'll go check it out." He started off before anyone else could argue or volunteer. He opened the door and headed down the small stairwell into the low-lit room lined with crates of supplies and armaments. At first, as the door closed behind him, he couldn't see any movement or anything out of place. But then he thought he saw a shadow in the far corner. He moved closer to inspect it…

"Garrus."

He jumped as he turned to face the voice.

A certain teenaged human girl was hiding behind the supply crates.

"_Terra_?!" He stormed over to her. "What are you doing here?!"

"I missed you. I needed to get back on my feet to get back to full health, anyway, so I followed you out."

"And my mom just let you?!"

Terra hesitated, the guilt plain in her eyes. "…uh…I left a note for Solana before I left, but—"

"You snuck out, didn't you?"

"Yes."

Garrus groaned, burying his head in his hands. "We've gotta get you out of here."

"To where?" she countered sharply, gesturing at the nearest viewing glass, "We already took off!"

"Well, you can't stay here! If anyone else sees you onboard—!"

"Vakarian!" The door to the cargo hold suddenly opened, letting the mission commander come in. "What's—" He stopped when he saw the two of them standing there.

Garrus looked between Terra and the commander for a second. "I can explain this!"

He didn't get the chance to try before the commander stormed over. "What is a human doing on this ship?!"

Garrus quickly intervened: "She's a refugee from Mindoir. My family has been housing her since the raid. She stowed away and it's too late for her to leave."

"I don't think so. Put her on an escape pod, we'll get another one at first port."

"We're halfway to the relay! She can't fly all the way back by herself!"

"Am I allowed to say something here?" Terra stepped in.

"No!" both of them snapped.

Terra was expecting this reaction from the commander, but she gave Garrus an incredulous look that indicated she had thought he would be on her side.

He glared back, silently telling her it was her own stupid fault for stowing away on a _turian military spaceship_!

"You've jeopardized this entire mission, Vakarian!" the commander snapped.

"I didn't _let her on_!" Garrus retorted. It was ironic that all it took was Terra's mere presence to turn the entire conversation from a professional commander-to-subordinate chat into a full-on argument.

Terra cut in anyway when she saw this for herself. "Sir, Garrus is telling the truth, he had nothing to do with this. If you'd just let me explain—"

"Terra, I don't think—" Garrus started.

She turned to glare at him then. "And if _you'd_ just let me explain!"

He was reluctant to agree to this, but he finally decided it was best to give her a chance, walking back to the stairwell and leaving her to talk to the commander for herself.

He watched as the two somehow managed to talk this over. He could see from here that she was making use of what she'd learned from her time as an honorary turian to add to her argument, impressing the commander to some extent. He could also see, to his utter astonishment, that the argument seemed to be _working_. When Terra had said her piece, she answered a few questions before turning to cast a triumphant grin over her shoulder at Garrus, the kind that says "I told you so." He looked on in shock now. Surely she hadn't actually _convinced_ him, right?

The commander finally sighed and walked over to Garrus to tell him where the exchange had brought them: "She can _observe_ the mission, but _keep an eye on her_!"

Apparently, she had. Setting aside his shock to reestablish some degree of deference, Garrus simply nodded and let the turian commander walk away.

Terra then took Garrus' side. "It's almost like he doesn't trust me."

Garrus responded to that comment with a sharp glare.

"…what?"


	7. Stowaway

Chapter 7: Stowaway

Adventure does not always call  
You must search it out  
You must fight for it  
Though everything may stand against you  
Stand against every tide  
The wind cannot move a stone

Terra sat in a crew quarters on the ship, checking her reflection with her omni-tool. She hadn't been concerned about her appearance since the raid (and, if she was being honest, not even that much before then), but now she felt it was time for a change. After all, she had changed, hadn't she? So she collapsed her omni-tool, pulled a hair tie from her pack, and set to work. After she was done, she checked again, finding she had managed to perfectly arrange a side ponytail draped over her left shoulder. Still not satisfied, though, she smoothed some of her hair to hang over her right eye. Now she smiled as she closed her omni-tool. She thought she might keep it this way.

After a while, Garrus came in. Once he saw they were alone, he turned to glare at her. "I can't believe you did this!"

She fingered her hair. "You don't like it?"

"Not that!" he snapped as he stormed over, "I can't believe you stowed away on a military ship! What were you thinking?!"

She shrugged, suddenly realizing how spontaneous and irrational the decision had been, despite how much thought she had put into it. Despite how easily she had chosen it. "Honestly, I was thinking it wouldn't be the first time."

He fought the urge to start outright screaming at her. "This is serious, Terra. I don't know how you convinced the captain to let you stay, but if you hadn't been able to, it would not have ended well for either of us. Best scenario, you got dropped off at our first port to find your way back to Palaven yourself while I got sidelined for the entire tour. Worst case…I don't even wanna think about it."

She had known there was a risk. She had also known that no amount of distrust for humans as a whole could lead to her getting spaced and she knew how to fight against everything else. She had lost too many people she cared about already. It could be argued she was still a bit too sick to think clearly, but she knew why she had done it: "It was this or spend two months without you."

Garrus sat down beside her, showing he sympathized even as he was still trying to tell her off. "You would've had Solana."

"…it's not the same."

He had no idea what to say to that. He was angry at the part of him that reacted to it, that understood her intentions and wanted to ease her concerns. It was his responsibility to protect her and bringing her on this ship was the furthest thing from keeping her safe. But it was also his job to be her friend and that meant being there for her when she needed him. And she had outright said she always needed him. He had thought this wouldn't be too much as long as they stayed in contact, but she was still healing from the trauma of the raid. The only person who could say she was ready to let go was her. He had to respect that, no matter how much it inconvenienced him. And now that he was thinking about it this way…

Garrus sighed. "…I would've missed you, too."

She smiled.

That did it. "Fine. We're doing this." He stood up, making up his mind and thinking over how best to address this. "Just stay close to me, alright?"

"Always," Terra smirked, "…that's kind of the problem."

He scoffed, shaking his head. "Alright, that one I kind of deserved." He helped her to her feet, leading her out of the bunk. "Come on. We'd better make sure you're going to have food until we get to our first stop."

"I did pack a few rations on the way out," she told him, patting her pack, "I'm not stupid."

"All evidence to the contrary."

"Shut up."

He simply smirked as he opened the door to let her through. "I do like the hair, by the way."

She beamed, teasing it slightly. "Glad to hear it."

_November 4, 2170…_

The extranet call they'd had to make with his mother had not been an easy one. She would never admit it, but she did see Terra as a daughter more than a refugee, as evidenced by the fact she'd been more worried about Terra's safety than about Garrus' reputation. Even Solana had stepped in to say essentially the same thing. Eventually, Terra had convinced them it was too late to change what had already happened and the safest place for her to be was on a turian scout ship as long as she didn't cause the crew any problems. Both of her opponents in the argument were about to retort that there was nothing she could do if the ship came under fire, but they realized there was no changing her mind (winter was settling in anyway and, while winter on Palaven wasn't exactly cold, there was no need for her to be there to tend the garden, so they had no real ammunition against her) and gave in. Now it was just a matter of keeping their word.

The crewmen weren't exactly happy with the arrangement. Some were even quite vocal about the security risks of having a human, even a civilian, on a military vessel, to which Terra was more than prepared to argue that, when it came to turians, there was no other kind. She was even prepared to argue that there was nothing on the ship she hadn't already learned and she was, at heart if not in body, as turian as any of them. Instead, she deferred to Garrus' judgment to simply remind them that, if they had a problem, they should take it up with the commander who had agreed to keep her onboard rather than whining about it to the two of them. There were still some glares thrown her way, but it was nothing she couldn't take.

Today was the first time the ship was pulling into a port to resupply their fuel and take account of their provisions. They wouldn't be ashore for long, but neither Garrus nor Terra had ever been to Thessia before and they thought it would be worth stepping off the ship long enough to see the sights.

It was Terra's first time seeing asari in real life, which was important in and of itself. But it was the view of Armali from the port and the horizon beyond that was enough to make her pull out her sketchbook then and there.

Garrus watched her in amusement. "Maybe that can be your artistic specialty. The horizon of every world in the galaxy."

She smiled. "Certainly something to aspire to. That'd be quite the collection."

After taking a moment to appreciate how eagerly she poured herself into this quick drawing, he glanced over at where the crewmen who'd gone on the supply run were. "Looks like they really are getting some extra food for you. Good thing the asari diet is compatible with yours. As long as you don't mind asari food."

"More like as long as I don't mind trying new things," she shrugged, "Though, as my dad would have told you, a culture's culinary style is just another form of their artistic expression."

He smirked. One thing he admired about Terra Shepard was how she saw the galaxy's every aspect with the eyes of an artist and reveled in the chance to learn of each culture's traditions. It was shedding light on her slowly returning hopeful, optimistic nature. A perfect balance to his cautiously cynical swagger. Just one of several reasons they paired so well despite their differences.

They stood there in silence for a while, enjoying the sights this world had to offer as Terra attempted to translate them to paper. It was only when the crew was being recalled that they both prepared to stop and head back.

"Just this was worth the risk of tagging along," Terra declared as she went back toward the ship.

Garrus nodded as he followed. "Wouldn't have wanted to see it without you."

_November 26, 2170…_

For the first time, Terra was alone on the ship. Sticking close to Garrus on the ship was one thing, but they had both agreed it was too far for her to accompany him while the crew was actually going out to scout an anomaly. She still wanted to minimize her time without him, though, so she was sitting close to the main door, passing the time until his return by scribbling in her sketchbook. Since the raid, she had yet to return to her poetry as much as to her drawing, and now that she could, she smiled when it occurred to her what her inspiration had become.

"This deck is off-limits for you, Shepard."

She stopped smiling immediately, turning up to look at the turian glaring at her. Kyrix had been one of the few tasked with guarding the ship until the main scouting party came back, but he was also one of the most vocal about how Terra didn't belong here. "I've been down here with Garrus before and no one said anything."

"Well, now I'm saying something," Kyrix sneered.

"I'm not hurting anything by just sitting here when there's practically no one else onboard."

"You're blocking the scouting party's entry, obstructing operations."

She scoffed, shaking her head and returning her attention to the book in her hands rather than letting him antagonize her. She knew their rules well enough to know when she was pushing them too far and she knew she would have warning to reposition before they came back to the ship. No sense letting him bait her into giving him a real reason to have her ejected.

Not that he would take her refusal to answer him as a sign the conversation was over. As he turned to presumably walk away, he, quite clearly on purpose, kicked the book out of her hands.

She didn't care about reprisal. She crawled over to retrieve it, following its path as it bounced off a corner into an alcove.

It was only when, as she placed the book back in her pack and stood up, the door closed behind her that she realized he'd just sealed her in the airlock.

She immediately whirled around to throw herself against the door, finding that it needed security codes to reopen. "What are you doing?!"

"Taking precautions," Kyrix smirked, smugly, "I told the commander he'd regret letting on Vakarian's pet."

"_What_?!" Terra instantly demanded, turning to glare at him viciously through the viewing glass.

"Don't tell me you didn't notice he put a collar on you."

Terra grabbed her necklace defensively and let all the hatred inside her stew. So much for not letting him antagonize her. "Kyrix, if you don't open this door right now, I am going to make you eat those words!"

He shrugged. "Funny thing. The airlocks need higher clearance than I have. Safety regulations and all that." He turned to go. "Hope you don't mind sleeping in there. Sometimes these scouting missions can take a few days to complete."

It was a wonder she wasn't panicking—she refused to show him he was legitimately scaring her—but she also wasn't letting him win by just giving up there. "By all the spirits, Kyrix, let me out!"

He froze when he heard that. Any other turian who heard her say that might be swayed, might remember their sense of honor or realize that she really was as turian at heart as she claimed. But he took a human invoking turian religion as a step too far. He finally turned to storm back over. "On second thought, maybe I _will_ let you out." So he pulled up the control panel and prepared the eject sequence. "Have fun finding your way back to Palaven without Vakarian holding your leash."

Suddenly, someone tapped on his shoulder. When he turned around, he was met by a sharp, brutal punch in the face. Garrus stood there, watching the soldier hit the floor painfully and shaking off his hand. Once it was clear, he turned to hack into the controls and open the inner door, letting Terra out. He didn't give her the chance to do so herself, he just hugged her. "Are you OK?"

"I'm fine," she assured him, "I'm fine."

After a moment, they both thought to look over at where Kyrix was lying unconscious.

Garrus looked at Terra, watching as she gave him a look of astonishment, appreciation, and amusement. "…we don't have to tell anyone about this, right?" he asked as he cradled his hand in apparent pain.

Terra shrugged. "I didn't see anything." She then looked down at her unconscious assailant and noticed he was rousing. "He's waking up. He's waking up!" She quickly grabbed Garrus by the arm and pulled him out of the room. They didn't stop moving until they reached the cargo bay and closed the doors behind them. She sighed and leaned against the door. "That could've been really bad."

"Maybe you should stay out of the common areas for a while," Garrus suggested, still rubbing his sore tendons.

"And do what, hang around the cargo bay for the entire trip?" She shook her head at him. "What are you doing back already?"

"Ironically, the commander got an alert that someone had accessed the airlock without authorization and sent me back to investigate." He looked her over. "Are you sure you're OK? He didn't touch you, did he?"

"No, it wasn't like that. He's just a bully. I can take worse than that." Then she looked down at his aching appendage. "How's the hand?"

He winced as he attempted to flex his talons. "Excruciating."

She reached over and gently took his hand to look it over. He flinched slightly as the pressure, light as it was, caused a twinge of pain to flash through the nerves, but he still let her carefully check for signs of damage. After a moment, she looked up at his eyes. Still determined. Still protective. If she needed proof, she was now convinced he'd throw himself under any bus in the galaxy for her. That meant more to her than she could say. Instead of trying, she smiled and laid her head on his. A turian sign of affection and gratitude. As he gave her a small smile in response, she located a med kit and started to bandage his hand.

This whole incident was likely to come back to bite them, but for now they were content to stay close to each other.

_December 3, 2170…_

Kyrix was watching them both with suspicion and vengeance for five days before he finally struck back. They were about to leave the mess hall when he stormed in and blocked their path out.

Garrus groaned. "Look, Kyrix, we don't want any trouble—"

"Then you shouldn't have let a human on the ship with you."

Terra glared in response. "How's your face doing?"

He growled, prepared to step in and pounce.

Garrus got between them, though he did make a point of blocking Kyrix's path with his newly healed hand. "We shouldn't be fighting, we're all allies here."

"You don't say? Maybe I should just tell the commander you attacked me."

"Good," Terra retorted, "then we can tell him it was necessary because you hacked into the airlock controls."

"You honestly think he's going to care about what a human stowaway says?"

Garrus didn't bother to restrain the protective growl in his sub-vocals or worry how it could be interpreted. He merely stepped in to defend her yet again—

Terra held him back, stepping up in his place. "Maybe not. But there are other ways to settle this."

Garrus looked at her in concern. What was she doing now?

"Really?" Kyrix sneered as he took position to stare her down, "What exactly do you think you're doing here, human?"

Terra smirked. "I'm challenging you."

That drew everyone's shocked attention.

Especially Garrus'. "Terra, what are you doing?!" he demanded, just barely managing to keep his voice down.

She shook him off, keeping her attention on Kyrix. "You and me, hand-to-hand, best of three. You win, I get off at the next port and you don't have to worry about me again. I win, you lay off me and Garrus. And if you're a proper honorable turian, you'll admit what you did."

Kyrix smirked. "You're on. I hope you can find some levo meds. They only need to watch the matches for _crew_ injuries." With that, he walked off to arrange the match.

As soon as he was gone and the buzz around the room calmed down, Garrus grabbed Terra by the shoulder and brought her to face him. "Are you insane?!"

"Maybe a little," Terra shrugged, "Aren't you?"

"Terra, you can't go through with this. You've seen him sparring the other scouts, he's been doing this for years, he's one of the best on the ship. You could step down, I'm more than willing to do this for you."

"_No_. That won't solve anything. …I have to do this."

"Terra—"

"Garrus, I know what I'm doing this time." She smirked. "I learned from one of the best, didn't I?" So she walked off to do her own preparations.

He simply stood there thinking _I wouldn't exactly call myself the best. …she's gonna get herself killed._

An hour later, half the crew was gathered in the training room to watch Kyrix most likely pound the tiny human stowaway. Garrus stayed close to keep an eye on Terra, all the while wondering what had possessed her to think this was a good idea.

Terra and Kyrix faced each other silently, no bravado or threats. Yet when the judge gave the signal to start the first round, Terra dove in to strike first, which was enough to make Garrus start wincing in dread. Kyrix was ready for the jump, ducking to grab her by the wrist. When she reared back to pry herself free and try again, he delivered a swift kick to her stomach. It threw her enough that he could twist his grip on her wrist to stagger her with pain. Which, in turn, gave him an opening to grab her other wrist. Just like that, Kyrix had Terra pinned, holding her arms behind her back.

Garrus had had enough. He was about to say "screw the rules" and run in to end this…

…when Terra threw her head back, pounding her skull into Kyrix's nose.

Garrus froze, stunned. He was almost certain he hadn't taught her that move.

Kyrix was just as stunned as Garrus but also in pain from the impact, causing him to reel back.

Terra used the free movement this allowed her to twist his hold on her, grabbing _him_ by the wrists and then turning around to kick him in the leg to throw him off balance. Then she jumped up to throw herself at him, sending him tumbling to the floor with her on top of him. She had him pinned.

_She had him pinned_!

To the surprise of absolutely everyone there, the judge called the first round in her favor.

As she pulled back to catch her breath and let her opponent recover, Garrus took her side. "How did you do that?"

Terra smirked. "Human school phys. ed. Required self-defense tactics. Never thought I'd actually use them."

Garrus fought the urge to laugh. She continued to surprise him.

Kyrix growled as he pulled himself together. "You set me up!"

Terra gave him a perfectly innocent look. "Is that what you call winning?"

Garrus didn't bother suppressing his laughter this time. "Go get him."

Terra smiled, taking position for round two.

Terra didn't bother giving him a false sense of security with an unstable charge this time. Kyrix knew what he was up against now and was already watching her more closely. So she used that to her advantage instead. A few feints were enough to make him angry. Once he was mad enough—and the indignity of losing a round to her in the first place was certainly adding to that—he threw his full strength into his next punch, going so far as to bare his talons on the downswing to tear into her soft human flesh. Instead of taking it, she ducked around to deliver a sharp blow to his spine.

Garrus smirked as he watched. In this round, he could see her strategy. She was taking his advice and exploiting her opponent's weakness. It wasn't just the sheer force Kyrix was using against her finesse or how easily she could wind him up either. It was the fact that he had only sparred against turian opponents…and so had she.

After several more countered maneuvers, Terra finally stepped back. "You could just tap out now…unless your pride just can't take losing to a _human_."

Kyrix growled and outright charged at her.

Which was exactly what she wanted. All she had to do was sidestep to trip him up. Then it was a simple matter of pushing him back the other way to put him on his back. She pinned him this time just by pressing her foot down on the most sensitive area of his carapace and holding him, though she made sure it was clear the threat to go for the throat this time was in place.

Just like that, round two was over. And since it was set at best of three, she had already won.

After the stunned audience eventually started either cheering or jeering, Garrus stepped over to take Terra's side as she backed off. "That was amazing!"

Terra smirked. "And you doubted me."

He laughed briefly. "Yes, well…I guess I should know better than to trust that a human will act as expected."

Kyrix stood up now, glaring at the both of them. Until, finally, he took a deep breath and gave Terra a look that conceded her victory. "Well played, Shepard."

She nodded. "I thought so."

He left the scene without another word, all the proof they needed he'd keep his word and show her a little more respect from now on.

Garrus smirked after him. "He's never gonna live this down, you know."

Terra shrugged. "Bigger they are…"

_January 4, 2171…_

As the ship headed back to Palaven at the end of the tour, Terra and Garrus agreed it was safe to conclude that it had gone a lot better than either of them expected. Though he also made her agree that she would give him forewarning if she ever tried to do this again. She was fairly certain she would know better next time, but she was also convinced she could pull it off again. She had impressed the crew, shown them that there was a human out there who was truly turian at heart. And if she was planning to take Solana's advice to somehow join the hierarchy, she would need this kind of experience. But there had been enough excitement on this trip to last her for a while.

After Kyrix admitted to the commander that he'd hacked secure functions trying to get Terra off the ship, he spent three days in the brig. When he came out and saw Terra had essentially won over most of the crew with her prowess, he was expecting she would take revenge. Instead, she had _forgiven _him—"No hard feelings, right?"—saying that "publicly destroying" him had been all the retribution she needed and the galaxy didn't need any more bad blood, especially not between their peoples. That surprised everyone. She had shown compassion, a human nobility, and put the crew before herself, a turian ideal. Even Kyrix had to take that as proof she was one of them in the ways that counted. She had earned his respect during the fight, but now she genuinely had it.

When the ship docked and everyone departed to return home, Terra and Garrus were surprised at the number of crewmen who took the time to say farewell to their stowaway. Kyrix himself confessed she had proven a good challenger and that it was nice to know not all humans were like they had believed. It wasn't as if he was saying she was actually turian by any measure, but it was close enough for her.

If only Garrus' mom held the same opinion. Had Terra not been able to talk her down and honestly say the crew hadn't minded having her onboard in the end, she was pretty certain she would've been locked in her room for the next two months to cover the difference. Solana was upset, too, but she was won over by the story of showing up Kyrix. Garrus also took the time to receive an extranet call from his dad that night and explain everything that had happened, inadvertently leading to yet another lecture for Terra about how stupid the original decision had been regardless of the eventual outcome but also a few compliments to both of them for their quick thinking and execution of their training (Garrus on the ground missions and Terra in the ring). It was tempting fate, but they stayed close all through the night until they ultimately went to turn in.

Terra smiled as she flipped through her sketchbook, looking over all she'd added to it over the past two months. "You've gotta admit. We make a good team."

Garrus smiled with her, taking her hand. "That we do."


	8. Memories and Dreams

Chapter 8: Memories and Dreams

Memory is rigid  
Dreams are ever shifting  
In memory we float and drown  
In dreams we fly and fall  
Days past lie within memories  
Days to come we can only dream

_April 24, 2171…_

The raid was a year ago today.

Terra sat quietly under the stars, looking up at the one around which Mindoir revolved and trying not to break down at the memory of what happened there. All day, she had been avoiding contact with all three of the turians she lived with, not giving them a chance to ask after her or offer condolences or even try to take her mind off of it. There was nothing they could say or do to change what had happened or how she felt about it. She just had to live with it. She was honestly wondering, though, if she should do something to honor their memories.

Her 17th birthday had come and gone silently. It was only when they were about to turn in that night that she had mentioned to Garrus what day it was. She was simultaneously surprised and unsurprised to hear that turians didn't celebrate their birthdays since their culture prioritized the unit over the individual. After she had explained how special the anniversary of one's birth was to humans, he had asked why she never told him until it was already too late to do anything for her. She had answered that it was the first time she would be having one without her family and it didn't feel like anything to celebrate just yet. It hadn't been mentioned since, but she knew good and well he had marked the date to do something special for her next year. She wondered what he would have in mind (or if he would just straight up research what was expected of him without asking her), but she also made a note to look into when his was so she could do something special for him where no one else ever had.

She thought of her last birthday, the last one she spent with her father's cooking and her mother's music and her sister's playing and her brother's storytelling. The gifts she had received and the belongings she had recovered were still in the box in her room. She didn't know what she was going to do with them.

She didn't know what she was going to _do_.

She felt the tears coming and curled up, turning her gaze from the star she had spent her childhood under and attempting to ride this wave of memories back to the happy times of music and art and love rather than the day of fire and blood and loss. But for every reminiscence there was a haunting from the nightmare she dreaded reliving. After a year, she had thought she had moved on enough to let go, to face the pain head-on. But now…

"It's OK. It's over. They're gone."

Hearing those words from that voice, suddenly all she could think about was how that day ended. A stranger pulling her out of the depths of despair and giving her everything she needed, a friend that stood by her through the grief. She smiled through the tears as she looked up to see Garrus kneeling down beside her. "We've come a long way, huh?"

He smiled back. "Yeah. We both have." He moved over to sit down beside her. "Are you—?"

"Don't," she shook her head, not even looking at him, "Don't do that. Not tonight."

He knew better than to argue. But he also couldn't stand to do nothing when he knew how much pain she was in. "Is there _anything_ I can do?"

She looked at him now, her bright blue eyes glistening with tears as his gazed at her with sympathy and sorrow. He had gotten her through worse than this. She couldn't turn him away. "…stay with me."

He nodded, wrapping his arm around her as she laid her head on his shoulder and let her grief run its course.

They sat there in silence until she eventually fell asleep, prompting him to carry her back inside. He was about to leave her to turn in himself when she woke up crying, almost screaming from a nightmare. He didn't bother asking her what it was. Again he asked her how he could help. Again she asked him to stay with her. So he slept in her room that night, only noticing when they woke the next morning that she hadn't woken up again…and that she was clutching his hand in her sleep.

_June 13, 2171…_

Garrus had been shooting bottles for three hours before he all but threw the rifle aside and sat down on the ground. He was still clearly distressed, but he had run out of ways to vent his rage, leaving him to deal with the disappointment and sadness beneath it.

Terra had watched him, unsure if interrupting was wise, for ten minutes before she finally came over to sit on the rock next to where he was crouched. "What happened?"

He just barely kept from growling at her or biting her head off. "The Spectre training. Dad talked me out of it."

She looked at him, utterly stunned. He had been ecstatic when he had received word he'd been picked out as a possible Spectre candidate—she could tell no matter how much he downplayed it as being one of 100 options. She had been a little upset at the prospect of him leaving to go racing across the galaxy as part of the Council's special task force, but she'd been so proud of him, so happy for him. And his dad had convinced him to turn it down? "What did he say?"

"You know my dad. 'No one should be above the law' and all that."

"Well, he's right about that, sure, but why does that mean you shouldn't try?"

"You tell me. Because I did it. I turned them down. And there's no taking it back."

She wasn't sure what to do now. She sat there in silence for several moments, hoping her presence would be enough to calm him while she considered how best to proceed. She had never had any aspirations as grand as joining the Spectres, let alone had those hopes dashed, so she had no frame of reference for this. What could she say? It was the right choice, it would all work out in the end? Even if she may believe that, it wasn't what he needed to hear. He needed…wait…

That's when Terra had an idea. Before she could talk herself out of it, she reached into her pack to pull out her pencil box and opened it. Her sister's piano playing her mother's song rang through the air around them. It had been a comfort to her at times, but for Garrus, it needed more. So she breathed in… "…_ you may be lost, but the light will show the way, you may lose hope, but every night turns into day, the stars may guide you home, but love will guide your soul _…"

Garrus slowly turned to look at her, amazed. "You can sing?"

She nodded. She had never cultivated that aspect of her artistic side as much. She couldn't sing as beautifully as Violet the near-prodigy, after all, and her talents had been mostly in the visual side of things. But she could still sing.

"And you wrote that?"

"The words, yeah. Sometimes one of my poems would work into one of Mom's songs or one of Nathan's stories so well that it was unofficially combined." With a sigh, she closed the box, letting the song fade out. "I'm not gonna say it wasn't the right choice, but it wasn't wrong. I know you're upset and this was a big sacrifice to make, but it doesn't change anything. You are still an _amazing_ soldier, the best I know, and you are still worthy of the offer. Things like this tend to come full circle. You'll be up there one day. Just not today. When you're ready."

He smiled wryly. "I'm not convinced I feel better just yet, but…thanks, Terra."

She nodded. "You were always there for me when I needed you, Garrus. So I'm always here for you."

He smirked. "Yeah, I guess you're a pretty good friend…for a human."

She answered that by shoving him.

He shook it off and smiled at her openly. "But you're _my_ human."

She smiled back. "And you're my turian."

He took her by the hand, drawing her to sit down beside him. They sat together, watching the sky as Trebia sank from the horizon, and took pleasure in the fact that, whatever challenges life might send their way, they'd always have each other.

_September 23, 2171…_

It was about midnight and Terra wasn't sleeping. She wasn't exactly new to that, but she knew tonight was going to be especially restless. Garrus had been called in for another mission, this time a genuine combat encounter, and she had somehow convinced herself not to stow away and follow him this time. Since it wasn't a full scouting tour, he was only going to be gone a couple weeks rather than a couple months, but that didn't mean she didn't miss him. And she was _definitely_ worried about him, regardless of how much faith she had in his skills. She had been lying here for over an hour trying not to think that her turian could be under fire dozens of light-years away and there was nothing she could do. She was about to sigh in exasperation and get up to start pacing and stargazing when she heard someone knocking on her window.

Wait, what?

Confused, she got up to check. Now stunned, she quickly opened the window. "Solana? What are you doing?"

"Kidnapping you," Solana smirked.

"What?"

"You already weren't sleeping and I'm a bit restless. Thought we might have a night out."

"…seriously?"

"What, you'll sneak off with Garrus but not with me? I thought we were sisters now."

Terra smirked. She had her there. "Give me a minute." So she quickly threw on some outdoor-worthy clothes, strapped her pack back on just in case, and crawled out the window to follow Solana through the moonlit dark to…well, wherever she had in mind.

Solana clearly knew her way well enough that there was no risk of them getting lost, so their only concern would be getting caught, but since turians were so stringent in their rules and efficiency that very few of them went against what most humans might view as a "constant martial law-imposed curfew," there was little to no chance of them coming across anyone else on their path. When Terra realized that path was taking them so far from the city that they had to cross a forest (which was rare enough on Palaven), her wonderings at where exactly they were going turned to sheer bafflement.

"Gotta admit," Terra said, "I'm a bit surprised. Garrus I could understand commandeering me for a night out, but you're a bit more…rules-y."

"That's not a word," Solana scoffed.

"Still gets the point across."

"I can have fun once in a while, too! Besides, I'm not on active duty at the moment, so the only person I'm inconveniencing by missing a few hours of sleep is myself."

"And me."

"I remind you that you already weren't sleeping."

Terra shook her head. "Fair enough. Where are we going anyway?"

Solana smirked. "Let's just say I know a few sights Garrus doesn't."

So they kept going through the forest, despite the density of foliage barring their path. And the fact that Palaven flora was tough or thorny enough to do some damage if they weren't careful. And the fact that said density obscuring the light from both moons was making it a lot harder to see that path. If Solana wasn't so undeterred, Terra would start worrying. But when Solana committed to something, she saw it through, even if it was sneaking out in the middle of the night for a little "adventure" with her human housemate. Plus, turians had much better night vision, so she probably could see the way just fine. Terra simply resolved to stay close to her companion, making her best effort to enjoy the warm night air, the scent of the jura flowers, the soft rays of moonlight between the leaves, and the anticipation of what must be waiting at the end.

At last, Solana lowered a branch on a tree to reveal their ultimate destination. "Terra Shepard, I give you the Karahven Falls."

Terra looked on in wonder. It was a genuine waterfall, a river from the north running off a 15-foot-tall cliff and into a lake. A cloud of mist formed from the collision of the two bodies, cooling the surrounding air and dewing the rocks and the leaves and fruits of the tropical plants that made the flora of Cipritine seem like growths of a desert. The water perfectly reflected the light of both moons and every star, glistening all the way down the cliff-face. She could almost see a rainbow in the starlit mist. It was beautiful and made her fingers itch for her sketchpad.

Before she could give in to the urge, Solana leaned over. "There's a magnificent view of the sunrise from the top. If you're up for a climb."

Terra smiled, a conspiratorial gleam in her bright blue eyes. "Definitely."

It didn't take them long to reach the top of the cliff. They had never declared a race, but suddenly they were scrambling for hand- and footholds to get ahead of each other, all but shoving each other back down in friendly competition. They reached the finish line about the same time, still tossing each other looks of mock challenge as they sat down in position to watch the horizon. All the while, Terra was awestruck by the tranquility of the waters, the splendor of their surroundings, the glow of the stars whose constellations she was coming to memorize. Solana found herself gaining a new admiration for it all by seeing it through Terra's eyes, suddenly realizing why Garrus had been seeing things so differently over the past year.

"Shame I can't capture this without letting anyone know we were up here," Terra sighed.

"Sometimes," Solana commented, "the memory is enough."

"Yeah. How did you ever find this place?"

"It's not a secret, it's just hard to get to. It was sort of a running challenge in my school to navigate the forest and get here, but I was the only one who ever managed to. Not that I told anyone I did it. I'd rather have the place to myself than go glory-seeking."

"And you're sharing your prize with me? I'm touched."

Solana smirked. "Yeah, well, some things are just not as enjoyable alone."

"Why didn't you show Garrus?"

Solana almost started laughing. "You had a brother. Wouldn't you have had use for a place to yourself?"

Terra laughed with her briefly. "Got me there." With a sigh, she looked around at the view again. "You sure know how to pick a good one. Don't see sights like this much on Palaven."

"They're rare enough to have spirits all their own. The same spirits that inspire our artists." Seeing Terra smile in response to that comment, she turned to ask her "Were there places like this on Mindoir?"

"Not quite like this one, but yeah. Forests, meadows, much bigger lakes. It was part of why my parents were so drawn there. When we had occasion to leave the farm, we'd go out to admire the scenery a little and I'd end up stopping to capture half of what we saw. It's how they got the running joke that they couldn't take me anywhere without me doubling the length of the trip." She smiled at the memory now, even looking up at the star she knew Mindoir was circling. It didn't hurt as much anymore. Coming to Palaven had been good for her, she realized. It was a strange thing to call yourself a child of two worlds (three if you counted Earth), but she was proud to say she was. "…I wish they could've seen this."

Solana nodded. "I wish we could've met them. But they'd be proud of you, not letting the loss break you, finding another place you belong in with some new scenery to enjoy. And they'll be even prouder when you finally become who you're meant to be. Because someone with your story and your strength, Terra Shepard, is going to be someone amazing."

Terra smiled. Hearing this from Garrus was one thing, but hearing it from Solana made her truly _believe_ it. "Thank you. I'll try my best to live up to that."

"You won't have to try. You're an all-in kind of girl. Like me."

"Yeah, we'd be quite the formidable duo."

"We would. But I know better than to get between you and Garrus."

"Shut up."

They sat there bantering and chatting for almost an hour before a glimpse of light in the distance caught their attention. Slowly, Trebia began to rise over the horizon past the trees and the river. The sun's rays brought full color to the shadows over the landscape, drowning out the moons and stars. The gleam off the water was blinding and the rainbow the mist had produced was brought out in the sky itself, a sight any stronger magnetosphere would create an aurora with. Terra, though, could visualize the lights on her own, imagining how this spectacle would be even more awe-inspiring. Maybe one day she'd paint that vision anyway. For now, Solana was right, the memory would be more than enough.

"What'd I tell you?" Solana smiled.

Terra sighed in amazement. "'Magnificent.'"

For a moment, they sat there in silence, enjoying the view together.

Then Solana thought to check the time. She almost started panicking when she did. "Oh, spirits. Uh, Terra, don't freak out, but we've got about half an hour to get back home before Mom realizes we're missing and likely calls the cops."

Terra didn't freak out. Honest. "Right. We should hurry."

She didn't need to say this, they were already hurrying. Without even making it a race, they were scrambling at full speed down the side of the falls. Fortunately, going down was faster than going up. Unfortunately, the hurrying led to a misstep on Solana's part. She managed to catch her footing before she fell, but the slide caused a rock to cut her in the side, between the plates of her carapace. She withheld a gasp of pain, silently assuring Terra that she was fine. Once they were at the bottom, she checked the scrape, finding a small gash of dark blue blood leaking out of it. She quickly pressed her hand against it to staunch the bleeding, letting Terra all but drag her back the way they'd come.

28 minutes later, they scrambled into the house through Terra's window. Terra gave a quick look out her door to make sure Solana's mom wasn't in the hall then sprinted to the bathroom to retrieve the med kit before she could come by. Then she closed her door and her window before turning to apply medi-gel and a precautionary bandage to the gash in Solana's side.

Once that was taken care of, they took a moment to calm down. And started laughing. They'd managed to have an all-night adventure without anyone finding out. It was certainly a thrill.

"We should do this more often," Terra said.

"Or we should quit while we're ahead," Solana responded.

Terra just laughed again.

Then they heard someone coming.

Terra abruptly stopped laughing and turned to shove the med kit under her bed.

Solana simultaneously turned just enough that resting her arm on her side casually would cover the blood in her clothes that she made a mental note to patch up later.

The door opened to let in her mother. "There you are. What are you two doing in here?"

"Just talking," Solana shrugged.

"Ah. Well, when you're done talking, we have work to do." With that, she left the room.

Terra and Solana waited a second to make sure the coast was clear. Then they started laughing again.

Definitely sisters.


	9. Separate Ways

Chapter 9: Separate Ways

No matter where you go  
No matter what you do  
You will never be alone  
My heart will stay with you

_February 7, 2172…_

Ever since Garrus came back from his last assignment, Terra had been insisting on keeping him to herself a lot more. "To make up for lost time," as she put it. She'd somehow managed to talk him into playing several rounds of some human games and teaching her some of the games turians play. He'd countered with some tests of how well his training held up, proposing a few sparring matches and a few sniping challenges. To his surprise, they'd been evenly matched in _every challenge_ they'd come up with. She even managed to pull off a 200-meter shot on a target, something that had taken him years to master (she admitted hers might have been lucky, but he could tell it wouldn't stay that way for long).

If someone had told him five years ago that he'd one day be inseparably best friends with a human girl, he'd have laughed. If someone had told her five years ago that she'd be so close to a turian boy, she'd have called them crazy. Yet here they were, as if they'd known each other all their lives and the species barrier didn't exist.

Tonight, they were lying under the stars, testing each other's knowledge of the constellations and the stories behind them. Even at this they were evenly matched, Garrus reciting human mythology and Terra reciting turian history as if it was what they'd been taught at school. Both of them were starting to feel like they could safely say they had learned more from each other than they ever had in a class.

Garrus turned to look at Terra as she watched the stars. Based on how she'd been so easily naming their constellations, he could've been convinced she had these star patterns memorized, but she was still taking her time to admire the arrangement of the distant lights. He had to admire that about her. "Lose one?"

She gave him a snarky look. "Ha, ha. I was just wondering which ones have inhabited worlds spinning around them. I only know where Mindoir's is."

He looked for a moment, realizing he hadn't wondered this for himself. Curious now, he plugged in a few programs on his omni-tool, comparing star charts and adjusting for the parallax from Palaven at this point in its orbit. "That help?"

She looked at the map he'd produced in amazement. "Actually, yeah. You should show me how to do that."

He smirked. "So long as you'll let me have a few tricks of my own."

"Oh, the guns I can manage, but I've hardly got the tech skills to accommodate what I've seen you do."

"Glad to know we agree there's something I'm better than you at."

"There had to be _something_." Shaking her head as he laughed at the exchange, she looked over the map. "So…_that one_ is Sol."

He checked for himself, nodding. "Yeah. That's where Earth is."

"Where my parents came from."

He looked at her, very briefly catching the mourning in her eyes before it turned to wondering at the home-world she'd yet to see. When she turned to look at him again, he saw only curiosity, so he returned to looking for stars that carried life. "I think that one is Caestus, where we improbably settled Invictus. That's Mactare, where Taetrus is. And that one is Thal, Altakiril's star."

Terra took a moment to compare those names to what she knew of turian history, running a couple extranet searches on her own omni-tool to check details. "Wow. Turians sure have a habit of picking the difficult colonies."

"Yeah, well, dextro worlds are hard to come by, so we can't exactly be picky. Plus, we're hardy enough to take it. …most of the time."

"So I've noticed." She glanced over the sky for a moment, slowly gaining a new appreciation for the vastness of it and wondering how many of these stars had yet to be found. "What about the Citadel?"

"Widow? About up there." He pointed almost directly ahead without even looking at the map. "I know that one well enough since Dad's always there."

Terra looked at this star with a profound admiration. By that star was the station that was the heart of the galactic community, the station that housed millions of every species. She wondered if it was like one of the "melting pot" communities on Earth, where each inhabitant brought some of their native culture with them, and if on at least one of the Wards there was a place to exhibit the art and music of every world… Suddenly enraptured with the concept, she turned to the map more excitedly than she expected she'd be. "What about the other home-worlds? Thessia and Sur'Kesh and the rest?"

Another thing he admired about Terra: her enthusiasm was infectious. So he turned to feed it. "Parnitha, the asari's star, is over there. Pranas, the salarians', is the other way, around there. That one, I think, is Aralakh, the krogan star. And Rannoch's star, Tikkun, is…well, I guess it's too far away for us to see it from here, but—"

"No, no, I see it," Terra declared as she leaped up to get a better view of the dim spark, "That's the quarians' home. The one they lost."

"The one the geth chased them off of, yeah."

"I mean, I can kind of relate to that." She'd always wondered how much the quarians had lost when they lost their world, how much history and art and culture they must've had to leave behind. She wondered if the geth would have left any for them to return to whenever they were finally able to go back. If they ever even could.

That thought was sobering. How much suffering did this galaxy have to take? How many people from every race had to lose homes and families and their entire way of life? Rannoch, Tuchanka, Mindoir. She wished there was something she could do to stop the bloodshed.

Or to quell it.

That thought froze her. She wasn't sure what it meant just yet, but she knew…

Garrus quickly took notice of her sudden quiet. He turned off his omni-tool and went over to check on her. "Something wrong?"

She shook it off. She'd worry about it later. "No, I'm OK. It's just…realizing how small we are…and how much it's all the same."

He didn't question her meaning. Her artistic side he could handle, but her poetic side was best left undisturbed. But the thought itself stuck with him, for some reason he couldn't yet understand.

Finally, with a sigh, she turned to face him directly. "It's getting kind of late. We should probably call it a night."

He agreed, leading her back inside.

As they went to sleep that night, the same thoughts lingered within their minds. He dreamed of history that didn't change. She dreamt of distant stars she'd never seen.

_March 19, 2172…_

Garrus sat on Terra's bed, flipping through one of her books. It was the book her brother had given her for her 16th birthday, the one displaying all her paintings and discarded poems as if they were the masterpieces of an artistic genius. Looking at them, he couldn't help thinking they could be. He also wished the whole galaxy could see it that way.

After a while, Terra came in and saw him sitting there. "Are you poking through my things?"

He smirked, placing the book carefully back on her box. "Just passing the time until you came back, actually." He sighed sadly as he remembered why he'd come to her room tonight. "We need to talk."

She looked at him almost nervously before coming to sit down beside him. "Yeah, there's something I need to tell you."

He hadn't been expecting that, and wondering what she could have to say to him that would make her so apparently upset was worrying. Still, he pressed on.

"I—" they both started, stopping immediately when they each noticed the other was talking.

Terra let off a small laugh. "Why don't you just go first?"

Garrus nodded, bracing himself and coming out with it: "…I'm leaving."

She looked at him curiously. "You got called in for another mission already?"

"No, I…I'm leaving Palaven."

As she realized what he meant, shock settled into her. It felt a bit like the ambient heat of Palaven's atmosphere had suddenly turned cold and she was slowly sinking into it. But she was too stunned to give voice to this. "…oh."

He couldn't look at her. He'd known this would hurt her. "I'm headed to the Citadel. To join C-Sec."

She looked down at the floor as this news sunk in. "So you're…going to work with your father."

He just nodded. "Yeah, but it's more than that. I want to help people, make a difference, and…I don't know, I guess military service is too impersonal for me. And since Dad talked me down from the Spectres…this was kind of the logical conclusion." He sat there in silence for a moment, regret already overcoming him. After a moment, the silence became too much and he turned to see if she was OK. She was still looking at the floor, barely reacting, but he could see the tension inside her. Finally, he sighed, reaching to lay his hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry—"

"No," she shrugged him off, "that actually makes what I have to say a lot easier."

Now his worries grew alongside confusion. "What do you mean?"

Terra breathed deep, dreading saying this out loud but knowing she had to. "I'm going to Earth."

His worries turned to shock, the confusion growing stronger. "What? Why?"

She couldn't look at him, but she said it anyway: "I'm enlisting with the Alliance military."

"_WHAT_?!" Garrus instantly demanded, jumping to his feet, "That's—you can't—!"

She just shook her head. She had figured he would react this way. "That's just it. I _can_. You already taught me all I need to know. The guns, the sparring—"

"I taught you all that so you could protect yourself! That doesn't mean you have to run off and join the marines!"

"No, I don't _have_ to," she retorted as she got on her feet to face him down, "But I _should_! I can keep anyone else from suffering through what I did. I can make sure that nothing like what happened on Mindoir ever happens again. I can prove I survived for a reason. If I can serve my people, I have no reason to stand by anymore. And since I obviously can't join up with the turian military, well…"

Garrus simply watched her. It was clear she'd made up her mind. "…I think you've gotten a little _too _turian."

She smirked. "I appreciate you looking out for me and wanting me to be safe. But much as I might want to, I can't stay here forever. Especially not if you're going."

"If that's how you feel, you could come join C-Sec with me. Problems solved."

She couldn't deny the appeal of that option. She smiled at the thought of working with Garrus permanently. "I'd love to. …but it's not just that. I need to go back to the Traverse, protect them where the Alliance couldn't protect my world." She glanced out the window at the stars, sighing wistfully. "And I wanna see the galaxy."

He could understanding her reasoning, even if he still wasn't happy about it. "So I just sit on the Citadel and worry about you every night? What am I supposed to do, knowing you'll be under fire halfway across the galaxy and I won't be with you?"

She answered with a sharp look. "How do you think I felt while you were on deployment? I couldn't sleep half the time because I was worried about _you_. Why did you _think_ I stowed away on that first scouting tour?"

He scoffed, though looking back on the incident now had long since becoming laughable. "So your ulterior motive is to get back at me for that? I see how it is, Shepard."

She reached over, taking his hand. "Do you trust me or not?"

This contact had long since become familiar to him, a human means of conveying attachment or seeking comfort. Or, in this case, offering both at once. It was enough to draw him to meet her eyes, bright blue spheres he was convinced were the same color as his own—yet another reason to consider her family regardless of species. The first time he saw those eyes, filled with mournful tears and helplessness, he'd pitied them. Now he saw the strength and determination behind them, that helpless farm girl long gone. She could take care of herself, he knew that. But turians were very protective of the people they cared for. Still, she had made up her mind, and she was as stubborn as _both_ their peoples. All he could do was answer her question and keep to it: "…yeah. I do."

She smiled gratefully but sadly. Seeing the fear still in his eyes, she laid her head on his. An unspoken promise.

He sighed, staying close. "No matter what happens…I'm proud to call you family."

She had heard him say so before, but hearing it now meant more to her than she could say. "And no matter what happens…I'm glad it was you who found me that day."

He smirked. "It had to be me. You're my human."

She almost felt like crying, but as usual, she held onto him to chase the tears away. "And you're my turian."

So they spent the rest of the night coming to accept that their lives would soon change forever. After being so inseparable for two years, the time had finally come that they were going their separate ways.

_April 10, 2172…_

Solana and her mom had been expressing their pride in Terra's decision for three weeks now, though it was clear they were also harboring the same trepidation as Garrus on the matter and just weren't as vocal about it. Now that the time had come for her to go, it seemed to have suddenly sunk in that she was really leaving.

While her mom had been content to simply offer some advice and share a few heartfelt farewells, Solana was actually hugging Terra and not looking forward to having to let go. "Just stay in contact, alright?"

"We're sisters, aren't we?" Terra smirked.

Solana smiled. "Try to remember that."

Terra fingered her necklace. "It'll be hard to forget."

Garrus came out from the hall with his bags packed. They had decided to make things easier by leaving together. His mom was sad to see him go, but not so worried since she knew her husband would be close by, so their goodbyes were simple. Solana's not so much. "Promise I'll stay in touch, Sol."

Solana shook her head. "Yeah, yeah, just don't do anything stupid while I'm not there to pull you out."

"Does that sound like something I'd do?"

"Regularly, yes." With a sigh, she laid her head on his. "Be careful out there."

Garrus nodded as he stepped back, taking his bags in hand.

Terra quickly took notice of her box in amongst Garrus' things. She hadn't been planning to take it since it wouldn't be able to come with her on deployment, but she hadn't expected him to take it himself. "Why—"

He shrugged. "Figured I could keep it safe. …have something to remember you by."

She smirked. "Alright. That I get."

"You two can talk at the spaceport," Solana nudged, "You'd better get going."

They couldn't exactly argue with her. So they said their goodbyes one last time and headed out together. The two didn't talk on the way there. They stayed silent but close together as they made their way through Cipritine to the transport station. Garrus kept it up because he didn't know what to say. Terra kept it up because she was worried saying something would make her break down. It was only when Garrus and Terra stood in the spaceport terminal that they realized this was it. He was going down one hall and she was going to another. And then they would be light-years apart for who knew how long. They froze there, hesitating to leave each other even though they knew they had to. Their choices were made, their bags were packed, and their ships were leaving any minute.

But they still hesitated.

"You're writing me every night," she finally said, "even if I can't respond. Got that?"

He nodded, smirking. "I was kind of planning to." He reached into his pocket and pulled something out, handing it to her. "And since I guess I won't be with you on your birthday…"

She smiled before she even took it. He'd remembered after all. And when she saw he'd given her a drawing of a demael flower, she was thankful he had.

"I know it's not as good as yours, but…" He pulled out the drawing he'd taken from her book a year and a half ago, the Palaven horizon that he'd kept with him ever since. "…we can both think of home."

She took a moment to appreciate the thought and the gift before she carefully folded the page and placed it in her pack. As he did the same with his, she simply looked at him. As if it was the last time. "…I'm going to miss you."

He looked at her in return, just as afraid he wouldn't be able to again. "Yeah, I'm gonna miss you, too."

Those words were too much. Forgetting the time limit entirely, she hugged him.

He hugged her back, not even caring what the people walking by would think. He took this chance to hold onto her and remember the two years they'd spent together, all the while thanking the spirits and the God she'd convinced him was watching over them that she had come into his life.

He didn't want to let go yet. Neither did she. But they still needed to go. So they reluctantly separated, said their goodbyes, and turned to leave.

They both looked back, though. As Terra clutched the necklace he'd given her, she realized they would always look back. But they would also always be together, no matter how far apart they were.


	10. Communications

Chapter 10: Communications

Ice beset by flames that does not melt  
Stone besieged by flood that does not erode  
A tree amidst the winds that does not fall  
Is separation

_April 11, 2172…_

Terra's mind had been made up for a month now, but it was only now as she approached the Alliance station that her heart started pounding, warning her there was no turning back after this. She'd been so awestruck when she landed on Earth and saw the sprawling cities and immense skyscrapers, nothing like the farming villages of Mindoir or the silver spires of Palaven. Now, however, it was just her and the enlistment process. It was daunting.

But soldiers valued bravery, integrity, honor, determination. She hadn't left Palaven, left her adopted family, left Garrus to turn back now. So she steeled herself, walked in, and declared her intentions.

Apparently, the Alliance representative who approved the Vakarians' decision to keep her as a refugee hadn't put it on her official record, an understandable choice that made this process a bit more difficult than she'd anticipated. Still, it was rare enough to have someone enlisting to the Alliance navy _on_ their 18th birthday that they could see this was sincere and help her on her way. After all, they had taken on orphans with less documentation than her and they couldn't blame one from Mindoir for disappearing after what happened there.

She spent the better part of her birthday touring the barracks in which she'd undergo basic training. As she settled into her bunk that night, she felt a calm assurance come over her. She'd done it. And she didn't regret it. Her only concern now was keeping her promises.

_10101010_

From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
Hey, Garrus. I made it to Earth alright. I'm officially an Alliance recruit now. Just wanted to let you know I'm OK and not to worry. I'll keep in touch as best I can.

_April 11, 2172…_

Garrus, with his father's help, had already set up his transition before he left for the Citadel. Upon arrival, all he had to do was show up at the C-Sec Academy and say he was Castis Vakarian's son and he was in. Now it was just a matter of getting through the training and "beat cop" phases so he could start doing his part like he intended.

His new apartment was on Kithoi Ward, so he headed straight there to drop his things off before calling his father to let him know he'd made it. He agreed to call back if he needed anything before hanging up and committing to getting settled in. Unpacking was simple enough, but Terra's box…Terra's box he carefully placed in the corner, not to be touched.

It was ironic that he was thinking of her when her message arrived. He smiled at the knowledge that she was safe for the moment and that her first thought had been to contact him. He messaged back before preparing to turn in for the night, carefully placing the drawing he kept with him on his nightstand.

_10101010_

From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
It's good to hear from you. I'll admit it, I already miss you. Things are pretty much normal on the Citadel. Dad's going to be showing me the ropes. Don't worry, I'll be writing you every time I get the chance. And I'll want to hear back from you as soon as possible.

_April 17, 2172…_

When they got to the first day of weapons training, Terra felt ready for anything. She was more than prepared for this, after all, so she was certain she could handle whatever they were about to throw at her. As she took a training pistol in hand and listened to the basic instructions, she compared it to what she'd already been taught, finding only slight differences that she didn't even feel the need to adjust for. Stepping up to the range, she took the time to size up her target. She may have only worked with bottles before, but she'd hit them dead-center at 100 meters and even capped a couple at 200. Some dummies at 25? Not a problem.

"Need a hand over there, farm girl?"

It took all her restraint not to roll her eyes at the comment even as she turned to face the perpetrator. Her fellow recruit, Evan Mitchell, had been a stereotypical middle school bully since they'd met five days ago, mocking and prodding at every opportunity. She knew she was unique among the recruits, but this was ridiculous. _Another day, another Kyrix. Some things I wish _weren't_ universal._ Still, she refused to let him get under her skin. "I think I've got it."

Mitchell scoffed as he took a shot, hitting the target just below the chest. "Have you ever even held a gun before?"

That particular insinuation drew her to give him a sharper look. Then she smirked as she turned to empty her pistol's chamber on her target, scoring three headshots, two in the heart, and one through the throat for good measure, all in the space of less than ten seconds. Having drawn the shocked attention of everyone on the range, she set down the gun and turned to smirk at Mitchell as he stared at her, utterly dumbfounded. "As it turns out, I have." With that, she stepped aside to let someone else train on her spot, ignoring how Mitchell was still watching her as she left.

Vindication on day 6. New record. If only she knew that would be the end of it.

_10101010_

April 17, 2172  
From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
Basic seems to be going well enough. Helps that you taught me before I came out here how to hold a gun without shooting my own foot off. Stay in contact, let me know if anything happens. I worry about you sometimes.

From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
Glad to know my teaching skills helped you out. Nothing interesting going on here yet, but you never know when something's going to happen. I really miss you, though. It's been over a week since we left Palaven together. I know I've been away for longer before, but…well, this time is harder.

April 18, 2172  
From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
I hate to say it, but we should probably get used to spending a lot of time apart. With both of us on duty, our schedules might get a little tight.

From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
No kidding. Doesn't look like I'll be getting many chances to get off the Citadel for a long time. Maybe, when you get out of basic, you could come by and see me. It'd be nice to have you back even if just for a day.

From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
Yeah. I'd like that.

_May 12, 2172…_

Garrus couldn't decide if he was lucky or not, having his dad as a training officer. It was nice to have someone who already knew his capabilities and everything, but there was a reason they'd never been that close. Still, it wasn't going to be for long, so he went along with it. At least he wasn't so restless going through the basics—"protocol" this and "letter of the law" that were laid out over the course of a routine patrol. It already seemed better than sitting around a scout ship waiting to stumble across some unrest, even if the most exciting event of the run was reprimanding a litterer.

"Not that I'm saying we shouldn't," Garrus asked afterwards, "but why bother with something so small? On the Presidium, I could understand, but on the Wards?"

"If you want people to respect the big laws," Castis answered, "you have to enforce the small ones."

Garrus took the answer, though he inwardly found himself questioning if such an example would do anything to deter a drug dealer or a murderer as long as they thought they stood a chance of getting away with it. Then again, if he brought this complaint to Terra, she'd probably give him some poetic explanation for why even the smallest difference could affect the bigger picture. "A butterfly doesn't know it changes the winds," he could practically hear her say. Funny he could predict that even though he didn't understand it. Either he read it in that book of hers or he knew her better than he thought he did.

When they came to the end of the patrol route and stopped in the upper Wards, Castis, prior to dismissing his son to the Academy, took the opportunity to give some extra advice. "I know you're used to doing things in the heat of the moment, but you need to remember things are different here…"

Garrus fought the urge to take a page from Terra's book and roll his eyes as his father drilled into him what he'd been hearing all day (and, technically, all his life). He did let his eyes wander when his father/instructor started pacing. He glanced around the area, training his senses to be wary of trouble. Until he thought he'd actually caught sight of trouble.

Salarian. Eyes wandering, hands close to his pack. Typical salarian to act a bit jumpy, but not like that. Signs of a pickpocket.

"…and most importantly, call in anything you see before rushing in," Castis was saying, "Understand?" Then he noticed his son wasn't even looking at him. "Garrus!"

"Dad…" Garrus signaled to the salarian.

Castis glanced that way, seeing the same signs Garrus picked up on. He gestured to his son to stay put for a moment and moved in to investigate. Garrus watched almost in triumph as his father found several stolen credit chits in the salarian's pack and made the arrest. When he came back over, he turned to Garrus and simply said "Good instincts."

That was possibly the best compliment he'd gotten from his father in years.

At the end of the day, he concluded that he might actually be as good at this job as Terra expected.

_May 15, 2172…_

Terra did foresee she hadn't heard the last of Mitchell, but she hadn't expected him to all but jump her on the training ground, backing her into a wall. "Uh…hello to you, too?"

"Did you really think nobody was going to figure it out?" he sneered at her.

"What are you talking about?"

"The prior training was one thing. But the necklace you refuse to take off, the messages before lights out…"

Now he was pushing her last nerve. She glared at him as intensely as she could. "Who I contact after-hours is none of your business—"

"Well, maybe it should be the commanders' business that you're spying for the turians."

"That I'm doing _what_?!"

"You heard me. Traitor!" He pushed her back into the wall as he growled this accusation.

She held her ground. She wasn't the kind to back down. "Do you realize how insane you sound right now? The turians are our allies, and contacting one of them doesn't automatically mean—"

"So you admit it? Were you even on Mindoir or is that part of your cover?"

That was a step too far. She glared at him with a ferocity worthy of a turian. "I was there. I saw all of it. Why do you think I'm here?"

He shook his head. "If that's true, you'll have no problem telling the sergeant that, will you?"

It was when he said that that she noticed their commanding officer was, in fact, across the way, in full view of all of this. She smirked as she saw what she had to do. "Good, then I can tell him you attacked me."

"Like it's gonna matter what you say after—"

"Why don't we skip straight to it, Mitchell? This isn't about the turians. This is about you."

He was confused for a moment before her meaning sent him into a state of fury. "That's not—!"

She all but laughed as she folded her arms tauntingly. "Go on, admit it. You just can't take the fact that you got shown up by a little _farm girl_."

That did it. With a growl just loud enough to catch some attention, he reared back to hit her.

And she caught him by the arm before twisting around to kick his legs out from under him and throw him to the ground. She gave him a smug look of triumph as she straightened back up. "_Twice_."

"What's going on over here?!" the sergeant demanded as he stormed over.

Terra quickly stood at attention, not even paying attention to Mitchell's moaning attempts to get back on his feet. "Mitchell and I had a small…_disagreement_, sir."

"So I saw. Why exactly was this 'disagreement' enough that he would attack you?"

She could've played dumb, even tried to make Mitchell pay the price for the incident. But he had been right that she couldn't hide it forever and she wasn't ashamed to stop trying. "He found out I've been living with turians for the past two years, sir."

The sergeant's stern look turned briefly to astonishment before he caught himself. "I…I see." He turned to see Mitchell still moaning on the ground and shook his head. "We'll talk about this later, Shepard." He reached over to help Mitchell back up. "Come on, recruit. Let's make sure you didn't break anything."

As the two headed off to the infirmary, Terra sighed. She was vindicated for now, but no one was going to look at her the same once word got around.

_July 28, 2172…_

They didn't. She had availed herself in every training session as one of their most able and skilled recruits, but it didn't stop the jeering and glares she received for the charm around her neck. She had faced similar enough on Palaven and especially on the scout ship to shrug it off, but even seeing that she didn't care didn't deter them from showing their distrust.

It wasn't until they started CQC training that she started to reach her limit. As much as the turians might have complained about her presence, they'd never actually physically attacked her, unless you counted the bout with Kyrix. Now she was a subject of hand-to-hand, some of them were willing to risk punishment to have a shot at her. She had enough practice sparring to know how to deflect the more serious blows, but she wasn't used to facing inexperienced humans, so select few occasions caught her off-guard.

Predictably, Mitchell was the worst.

Sergeant White was watching over the training matches today. Usually, Terra could rely on the training officer to make sure no one went too far, but White was different. He'd been in the First Contact War before he became a training officer, so he was one of the chief offenders in her torment. To make matters worse, Mitchell was something of a teacher's pet for him and was all but making a mockery of all the other recruits he was put up against. So when he was looking for Mitchell's next opponent and turned to Terra to say "Shepard, why don't you come up and show us what the birds taught you?" she was pretty convinced she was done for.

But she went up anyway. She wasn't certain if it was because Garrus was right that she was a bit too turian or if she was genuinely dumb.

Mitchell smirked as she stepped into the ring, as if he had already won and there was nothing she could do to change that. That was enough to convince her she had to prove otherwise. She turned her own method against him, letting him charge in and then countering. No sense letting him start with the upper hand. Although she would feel better if she again had Garrus watching in the stands with that look in his eyes as if her opponent didn't stand a chance.

After a sidestep caused Mitchell to lose his footing on a kick, giving her an opening to grab him by the ankle in midair and throw him onto his back, White spoke up. "Foul, Shepard. You could've given him a concussion this time."

Half of her was sneering that his skull was too thick, but her reasonable side stepped up to plate. "I'm pulling my punches as ordered, sir. There's no—"

While her back was turned, a fist came up from behind her to deliver a sharp uppercut.

She reeled back to the edge of the ring, clutching her nose and feeling blood come out. "Mitchell! 'No injuries allowed!'"

He shrugged as if her words meant nothing. "Frankly, I just wanted to make sure your blood was still red."

The words sent her seething. She was itching to jump back in and claw her way out of this one when she realized something. Solving this one wasn't the same as beating Kyrix. Proving her strength would only make it worse. The truth was that she had no way of honestly showing Mitchell and White and the rest of them that they were wrong. So it was time to set aside the turian in her and succumb to a human ideal the turians had ruthlessly mocked: "Sometimes the only way to win is not to fight."

She readied herself for the next round, leaving an opening he couldn't resist.

He took it, rushing in to deliver a sideways jab to her ribs.

She ducked back, sending him tumbling past her and into the side of the ring.

He turned to glare at her. "What are you playing at now, birdie?"

She ignored him, sidestepping his next attack effortlessly. "I don't have to sink to your level, Mitchell." She waited for him to come at her again, once more turning his momentum against him just by avoiding. "I'm here to serve the Alliance. It shouldn't matter where I came from to do it."

He didn't listen to a word she said, almost immediately pressing the attack. He sacrificed some of his power to move faster, attempting to throw her off balance and open her up for another direct attack, but she kept blocking, watching his attack pattern as best she could. It was when she outright jumped over his attempt at a leg-sweep and head-butted him on the way down that he threw himself into one last charge. This time, all she had to do was trip him and then, once he was all but collapsed against the side of the ring, grab him by the wrist, twist it to hold it behind his back, and kick him in the back of the leg to drive him to his knees.

Mitchell was pinned. Game, set, match.

White had to step in now. Terra could see he was searching for a way to call foul on her, anything to bring down the adopted turian. She had been careful not to give him one. "You learned all that on Palaven?"

She took a breath as she recovered. "Actually, that last one I learned from you, sir."

She had him there. He helped Mitchell up, still eying her suspiciously. "At ease, recruit. Who's next?"

The glares and jeers never really stopped, but she had made her point enough that they became less common after that day. She was fairly sure she could handle it now.

She also decided it was best not to tell Garrus about any of this.

_10101010_

August 30, 2172  
From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
Got out of basic (finally). Not to show off, but they record the runs on the final training course and, judging by everyone's reactions to mine, I think I set a record (1 video attachment). I'll be starting on duty soon, but don't let that keep you from staying in touch.

From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
I don't think anything short of the COMM buoys all suddenly dying would keep me out of touch with you, Terra. And way to not brag even though you are very impressive. Stay safe out there. Just remember you promised you'd come by the Citadel as soon as you get the chance.

August 31, 2172  
From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
Ha, ha. I remember the promise, by the way, but I realized something. You always talk about me coming to the Citadel to visit you. How about you find some time off to come by here sometime? You showed me Palaven. I'd love to show you Earth.

From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
I'd like that, too. I'll see what I can do.

March 1, 2173  
From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
You were right. Earth is amazing. I'm glad I got to see it with you.

From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
I'm glad I got to show you. Thanks for showing me the Citadel.


	11. Action, Reaction

Chapter 11: Action, Reaction

However much you plan  
However much you anticipate  
However much you know  
You cannot know what you will do  
When the flames are upon you

_June 13, 2174…_

Terra was still getting a feel for her weapons. Live fire guns felt different from the training weapons she was used to and she wanted to make sure she had a handle on the aiming variance, however slight it may be, before such time as her life might depend on it. The unit she had been assigned to was scouting a cluster with scattered mercenary activity. When she finally found herself in a proper firefight, she wanted to be ready.

"Do you actually see a target this time or are you trying to scare off the wind?"

Terra rolled her eyes before stowing her weapon and turning back to the camp. "There's nothing wrong with staying in practice."

Mitchell just gave her a look, the same look he gave her every time he caught sight of her and her turian-made necklace, even if said necklace was now hiding under her tags.

She still thought whoever's bright idea it was to put him on the same squad with her didn't know what he was getting them into.

The other low-ranking soldiers serving under Commander Miyako—Dearborn, Franklin, Collins, etc.—hadn't questioned why she and Mitchell didn't get along. Lately, though, she had noticed them looking at her differently. It wasn't until now that Private Dearborn stepped up and outright asked "Is it true?"

Terra hadn't been expecting the question and turned to give her a confused look. "What?"

"There's a rumor going around you were born and raised on _Palaven_."

Terra almost scoffed. She'd figured it'd eventually get around, but she didn't think it'd get taken _that_ far. "No, I was born and raised on Mindoir."

Dearborn seemed a little disappointed at first. "Oh." Then she realized what exactly that meant. "_Oh_. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't—"

"It's fine. There's more to it. A turian scout ship was the first responder after the raid. It was one of their soldiers that found me. I spent the next two years living with his family on Palaven before I enlisted."

Dearborn got the intrigue she was looking for with this confession. "You actually lived with the turians? What was that like?"

Terra smirked. "They're not the cold warmongers people seem to think they are, I'll tell you that, but they are disciplined. It's all about honor and service, the people before yourself. The scout who found me even taught me how to fight. If I hadn't gone there, I don't even know if I'd be a soldier now."

"Pretty it up however you want, Shepard," Mitchell scoffed, "You're still talking about the aliens that attacked us not 20 years ago."

She turned to give him a look of her own. "Funny, they say the same about us."

Before Mitchell could respond, Commander Miyako stepped in. "Look alive, people. We've got an incursion. Merc squad attacking a civilian facility planet-side."

The entire unit geared up and mobilized almost immediately, only a few questions about where they were going and what their orders were. Terra simply gave her weapons one last check as well as a quick check to her armor and shields. She could already feel her pulse rising. She was really about to go on a proper mission. She was nervous, sure, but also excited. This was it. Time to show them all what she could really do. Including herself.

The briefing was basic—mercenary squad seized control of one of the geological research stations on Intai'Sei, the one that first reported mineral deposits on the eight-year-old colony. Possible hostages, main priority to clear the base. As they moved in, they found they couldn't establish communication, so the commander gave the order to sneak in the back. They touched down behind the main facility and moved up to the entrance to find the door locked.

"Blow the lock?" Mitchell suggested.

Miyako shook her head. "We'll lose the element of surprise. Franklin, see if you can hack in."

Franklin acknowledged the order and stepped up to access the door controls. He was the most technically-inclined member of the squad and easily made his way through the locks without a single alert triggered. The door slid open.

"Nice work. Everyone move in, single file, keep quiet."

They followed the order, heading further into the facility and keeping to the shadows. It didn't take long to reach the security control room, where one of the mercenaries was holding the security officer. Miyako nodded to Collins to move in. He snuck through the door and silently took down the mercenary with a knife.

The officer took notice. "Please tell me you're Alliance."

Miyako quickly stepped in. "We are. What's the situation?"

"They killed my whole team. The scientists are in the labs, the rest of the mercs are on that level."

"We're on it. Seal yourself in behind us." Miyako led them further into the facility towards the area the mercenaries had apparently closed off for their seizure of the base. A competent strategy had they only expected the Alliance to respond this soon. The squad was able to find a way onto the observation deck over the labs themselves. They had the element of surprise and now the high ground. Now it was down to execution. "The second they know we're here, they're going to start using the hostages as human shields. We need to move fast or smart."

While Mitchell again suggested using his demolition expertise and Franklin started scanning for a weak point in the room security to turn against the intruders, Terra gave the room a tactical once-over. Both sides were even in firepower, but the mercs had slightly higher numbers. No amount of speed was going to keep them from losing some hostages unless they could disorganize the opposition. Looking a bit more closely, she could see a weakness worth exploiting.

Terra turned to Miyako. "Commander, that circuit breaker on the far side of the room. It's directing power to the labs. If we can disable it, they'll lose lights and automated systems. They'll scramble and we'll have the jump."

Franklin checked that she had the right idea. "Bold strategy, but it could work."

Miyako examined the breaker in question. "That's an awful small target, almost 50 meters out. Can anyone make that shot?"

Terra steadied herself, clinging to the memories of Palaven sunsets and training shots at bottles on rocks barely in view of a military-grade scope. "I can."

Mitchell shook his head. "We can't risk the entire mission on your chance to show-off that bird-raised cockiness, Shepard."

Terra ignored the comment but still defended against it. "You haven't seen me with a proper sniper rifle, Mitchell. _I can_."

Miyako glanced warily at Terra. She knew it was her first time in the field, but she also had seen her training records. Seeing that the assertion was made not from ego but simply from fact, she could trust it. So she acted on it, sending half of the unit, including Mitchell and Dearborn to the right, and the other half, including Franklin and Collins, to the left to flank the enemy. She stayed close to Terra, watching her draw her sniper rifle. "Alright. Keep it steady. Take the shot. We'll move in, you secure the hostages."

Terra nodded and took aim. As she fixed her sights on her target, she thought back to her training—not the Alliance but Garrus. _Breathe in, aim, fire, breathe out._ She breathed…and she fired.

And in a burst of sparks, all the lights went out.

Luckily, the squad had brought along some night-vision tech. As soon as the shot was made, they burst in to take advantage of the confusion. The next five minutes were utter chaos. While Miyako stepped in to manage their side of the firefight, Terra acted on her orders and moved in to ferry the scientists to the hall and in the direction of the security control room.

As soon as Terra gave the signal that they were clear, Mitchell gave the signal to get down and threw his grenade. It was in the flash of light from the resulting explosion that he saw one of the mercenaries, presumably the leader, attempting to escape in the confusion through a back door. He gave an offhand declaration of this to Miyako before heading to pursue without even waiting for an order. Once he was in the hall and could see without night-vision again, he picked up speed and practically tackled the mercenary.

The scuffle this incited was not pretty. The mercenary threw Mitchell off, slamming him into the wall, then attempted to knock him out. Mitchell recovered just quickly enough to duck under the initial strike and deliver a sharp kick to his opponent's gut. Unfortunately, this wasn't a training session and his opponent had enough armor to cushion the blow. This gave the mercenary a chance to counter the attack, grabbing Mitchell by the ankle and twisting to send him tumbling to the floor. Mitchell turned over just in time to see a gun pointed at his head—

_Bang!_

The mercenary dropped his gun as he fell to the floor, red blood leaking from the shot in his head.

Terra stood behind him, still brandishing her pistol.

Mitchell stared at her in shock for a moment, not sure how to respond.

She only gave him a cursory glance to make sure he was uninjured. Then, as the heat of battle winded down behind them, she slowly realized what she'd done. Her gaze fell on the body and her hand started shaking…

Mitchell finally got back on his feet and approached her. "…thank you. I'll tell the commander we're clear."

She didn't look at him as he stepped past her and back into the labs. She barely moved until Miyako came over the COMM to tell the unit to regroup at the security control room. Then she took a few deep breaths, holstered her pistol, and got moving. Even after she left the body in the hall, though, she still saw it.

After a quick tally of their forces and the hostages who made it to the control room, as well as a glance over all the base's security cameras, Miyako informed the squad they had accomplished the mission with no casualties on their side. While the soldiers were celebrating this victory, Miyako stepped back into the hall to find Terra leaning silently against a wall and gazing at the floor. She stepped over. "Your quick thinking gave us the edge we needed in the fight. And Mitchell told me how you saved his life. Good work, Shepard."

Terra smiled blankly at the encouragement, tossing out a thank you but not really responding.

Miyako looked at her quietly for a moment before seeming to catch on. "…first confirmed kill, private?"

Terra hesitated, the sound of that third word hitting her in the gut. Still, she nodded. "Yeah."

Miyako understood that well enough. She'd overseen enough first-timers and even been there herself. Glancing briefly at the rest of the squad, she took command with Terra once more. "Head back to secure the camp, private. We'll reestablish contact with the Alliance from here."

Terra gave Miyako a confused look for a moment, wondering why she would think the camp they'd mobilized from would need securing. Then she saw the ulterior motive behind the order and gave her commander a grateful smile, one she actually meant. "Aye-aye, ma'am." With a brief salute, she left the base and headed back. All the way there, though, she felt warm red blood on her hands.

_10101010_

From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
Garrus, could you please call me as soon as you get the chance? I really need to talk to someone and I'd prefer it was you.

_June 14, 2174…_

Terra sat on the floor of her bunk, leaning back against the wall sadly. All night, while her unit was standing guard on the research station until they could confirm no reinforcements would be arriving, she'd been "standing guard" here, failing to drive the memory from her mind. No matter how many times she told herself "mission accomplished" or "you knew this was coming," it didn't change what happened. Nothing could.

Then her COMM beeped to signal a long-distance call. _Very_ long-distance.

She immediately answered. "Garrus?"

_"Yeah, it's me. I got your message."_

She sighed with relief, closing her eyes and taking in the sound of his voice.

_"Are you OK, Terra? What happened?"_

She had been so certain when she messaged him. Who else would she ever call? But now that he was on the line and she realized she would have to say it, the weight caused her insides to run cold and empty. The only thing that steadied her, besides hearing his voice ask with growing concern why she was so quiet, was the knowledge that it was only going to get better once she faced it, just like the raid. So she told him everything that had occurred on the mission. Specifically how it ended.

_Garrus saw where it was going halfway through. He'd been anticipating this, clearly. "Terra, you had to."_

She shook her head. "No one told me to. I just did it. I wasn't even thinking, I just pulled the trigger, like he was just another bottle. Now when I close my eyes, I see blood _I _spilled and I can't—"

_"Terra, listen to me. This is just part of the job. The first time's always the hardest. I promise you it's gonna get easier."_

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

_"No, this is: you did the right thing."_

Terra scoffed to herself inside the barracks. "I killed someone, Garrus. How could that ever be considered 'the right thing'?"

_"For one thing, ask yourself if you'd be feeling any better if you hadn't taken the shot."_

She couldn't argue with that. If she'd had a chance to save Mitchell and hadn't, it'd only be worse. Though she couldn't decide if that meant she really had acted correctly or if it was simply a no-win scenario. She had known going in that she'd be asked to go for the kill, but she hadn't foreseen…

Wait.

It suddenly occurred to her. Garrus had been on missions for the turian military. He'd been in combat. He was a _sniper_, so he must have… "How many?"

_"What?"_

"How many confirmed kills do you have?"

_Seeing her meaning, he hesitated. But he had never kept secrets from her, so he said it: "12."_

She wasn't sure what surprised her more. That Garrus had never mentioned this? That he'd taken so many targets and there were undoubtedly more that went unconfirmed? That he'd done it in only three years of service before heading off to C-Sec? …that it didn't actually change how she saw him?

_"Look," he quickly stepped in again, "I couldn't quite handle it at first either. But every time, I told myself it was for the greater good. Eventually, it worked well enough I could stop thinking about it. Just remind yourself why you're doing it—their victims, not yours."_

She sighed, clinging to his words. "Still not hearing how I'm supposed to feel better."

_"Be honest. Would you want _me_ to call if your goal was to feel better?"_

She laughed briefly. "No, I guess not. Honestly, I'm not sure I want to feel better about this. …I just needed to hear your voice."

_"…I'm always here for you. No matter how far apart we are. You know that."_

She smiled, fingering the necklace she kept tucked beneath her uniform. "Yeah. I do. I'm here for you, too, you know."

_"I'll be sure to keep that in mind."_

She wanted to keep talking to him while she could, but she eventually heard the sound of her squad returning. "I've gotta go. I'll talk to you later." Before he could hang up, though, she turned to say one last thing: "And Garrus? …thank you."

_She could practically hear him smiling. "Anytime, Terra. Stay safe."_

After the call ended and the squad reconvened before calling it a night, she slowly started to come to terms with her actions. It'd be a while before she genuinely felt better about it. She didn't sleep well that night. But she held to Garrus' advice and kept in mind that he was there for her, that this didn't change who they were. She reminded herself constantly that it was a soldier's duty to sacrifice. This was the first sacrifice. She had to be prepared to make more.

And deep down, she knew she would.

_10101010_

June 18, 2174  
From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
Let me know if you need me to call you again, alright? I worry about you, you know.

From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
I will. And don't worry. You'll only have cause for concern the day killing someone _doesn't_ bother me.

From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
I know you, Terra. You're stronger than that. That's why you're gonna be the best the Alliance has.

From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
Shut up. …and thank you.


	12. From Elysium to Purgatory

Chapter 12: From Elysium to Purgatory

Hail not the conquering hero  
Hail their source of light  
The stone from which they draw their sword  
Is the same they lean on for respite

December 21, 2175  
From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
The squad's being reassigned. I'm being stationed on Elysium. I'm heading out now. I'll write you back as soon as I get there.

From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
Be careful! Elysium may be a typical human "paradise," but it's still the largest colony in the Skyllian Verge and you know better than most how territorial the batarians are. And I'm learning that no matter how safe you think you are, there's always someone who wants to stab you in the back. I can't stick around you all the time to watch for the bad guys so try not to get yourself killed, OK? And next time you have a shore leave or something, come see me. I'm actually getting kind of lonely without you around.

January 7, 2176  
From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
You'll be happy to know I made it to the camp knife-free. Doesn't look like I'll be able to make it all the way back to the Citadel next time I'm on leave, though. I'll write you as much as I can, but it looks like I'm stuck here for now. But, hey, you've got my number if you start getting lonely and want to talk. Of course, it'll be hard to find a time when neither of us is on duty, but I'll stay in touch. Stay safe out there, OK? I miss you.

From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
I miss you, too. I'll try to call when I get the chance. Talk to you then. Watch your back.

February 6, 2176  
From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
Looks like I'll be on leave for a while. I was right, I am still stuck on Elysium, but it's not bad. Call me whenever, I guess. It's not like I'm going anywhere.

_February 11, 2176…_

Elysium was quiet, peaceful, and beautiful. When she'd first landed, Terra had been tempted to capture the landscape at the first opportunity. At the start of today, she'd taken that opportunity, appreciating the freedom of shore leave for just long enough to finish a quick drawing before the squad pulled her into some lighthearted revelry. Dearborn had achieved a sort of camaraderie with her, despite constantly peppering her with questions about her time with the turians. Franklin and Collins were mostly offering friendly challenges at everything from cards to darts, including one ill-conceived challenge to see if she could get a bulls-eye with her eyes closed (she was still thanking every spirit the planet might be housing that the shot hit the wall and not an unfortunate bystander). Mitchell, naturally, was constantly ribbing her, but at least the fact she had saved his life had long since traded bigotry and distrust for simple teasing (though the nickname "birdie" persisted). The five of them had been fighting alongside each other long enough to get to know each other, to stay close and competitive even off-duty.

Then the madness started.

Garrus had predicted the batarians would be trouble, but no one could've predicted how much. The assault on Elysium that began today made the raid on Mindoir seem small. The five off-duty soldiers had to take action quickly, organizing an attempt to evacuate civilians from the city center to the Alliance outpost. Before they could even get their hands on weapons with which to do so, Franklin and Collins fell under fire. The three soldiers left standing reacted almost without thinking, leading the group of civilians they'd corralled down an alley as the first troops of batarians landed. Terra simply waited for one to approach their hiding place and then tripped him up and strangled him, taking his weapon once he was dead.

"What's the plan, Shepard?" Dearborn asked.

"We need to get everyone we can to the base outside the city and seal it until the Alliance can send reinforcements," Terra said. Then she realized what just happened. "Wait a minute, why am _I_ suddenly in charge?"

"You're the one with the gun!"

"Then why don't you take it and _you_ can be in charge?"

"For one thing, because we've seen you in action and we know you're the best shot here."

Terra shook her head. "That's not gonna help if they blindside us again."

"Well," Mitchell shrugged, "then I'll just take the gun off your corpse and I'll be in charge. Problem solved."

Terra glared at him briefly before peering out to assess the situation. Now that the batarians were out, there were arriving in force, and the Alliance base was outside the capital city, five blocks away. It wasn't going to be easy. But it wasn't impossible. So she checked the gun and waited for an opening. Then she gave the signal and they started moving as quickly and quietly as they could through the city.

They encountered a small group of batarian troopers around the first corner, four invaders with weapons armed and ready. Terra had the jump on them, so she moved fast, hoping she could do this without actually firing and potentially giving away their position. She used the gun in her hands as a blunt weapon to bash the hindmost trooper in the skull, kicking his weapon over to Mitchell, then elbowed the next in the windpipe to knock him out, kicking his gun over to Dearborn and scavenging a knife from his belt. That was when the other two noticed the commotion behind them and turned to engage. Terra dove in to disarm them both, stabbing each of them in the throat.

Once it calmed down, she noticed the blood on the knife. Red, like humans, but still so different. She had long since come to terms with the concept of killing people in battle, but some part of her still struggled with it.

Dearborn, however, examined the four bodies even as she checked the gun in her hands. Terra had just disabled or killed four targets in less than ten seconds without firing a shot. "OK, that was impressive."

Terra smirked as she slid the knife into her boot. "Again, won't matter if we stay here. Come on." She went back to leading them through the siege, staying quiet as long as possible. Which, to her credit, was about halfway there. When they stumbled upon another troop of batarians gearing up to execute a group of civilians, they didn't have time for finesse and had to open fire. The batarians went down easily enough to save the civilians, but the gunshots did give them away. Now all they could do was run.

So they ran, dodging enemy fire for two blocks. When they came up on the base, though, the plan started losing steam. The batarians had hit there first, killing all the soldiers and disabling the base. Terra wasn't deterred. She ushered the civilians in as Dearborn and Mitchell laid down covering fire. Then she located the security console on the main barricade and set to reactivating security to seal the doors.

"Hurry it up in there, birdie!" Mitchell called from cover.

"I'm going as fast as I can without Franklin, Mitchell!"

"There's too many of them!" Dearborn said, "We can't hold them off—!" As she said so, she ducked out to let off another shot.

And took one in her skull.

Terra and Mitchell both watched her body hit the ground. They both stilled with shock. Then they both tensed with rage. Had Terra not still been in the process of sealing the doors to protect the civilians, she would've helped Mitchell lay into them with blind fire. As it was, she pushed harder through the control interface, finally finding the command to reboot security and seal the barricade.

Mitchell saw the doors closing before Terra could signal him and, with one last series of deterrent shots that Terra now joined in on, raced to jump into the base.

He made it halfway there before he took a shot in the gut and collapsed.

Terra acted without thinking, grabbing a grenade from the emergency stockpile by the doors and throwing it into the batarians' line to scramble them so she had time to drag Mitchell through the closing barricade. Once it was clear and the doors were sealed, she turned to prop her injured squad-mate against the wall so she could check the wound. Without his armor to protect him, the shot had pierced a lung. He was already bleeding badly. She quickly turned to the emergency stockpile, scrounging for some medi-gel.

When he saw there wasn't any there, he stopped her. "It's too late, birdie."

She turned to him in shock. How could he just accept this? "Mitchell—"

"Save it for the civilians. The Alliance is on the way, but you need to buy them time." So he used the last of his strength to press his gun into her hands. "Show them what you can do, Shepard."

She wanted to keep arguing, but there was nothing else she could say. She simply watched helplessly as he bled out. As he stopped breathing.

"Shepard?"

She turned without conscious thought.

One of the civilians she'd rescued was standing there, looking at her as if expecting her to live up to her name. "What do we do?"

This she didn't even need to think about. As she got to her feet, she closed Mitchell's eyes and readied herself to avenge the blood he'd paid, the blood of every human the batarians had slain today. She clutched the gun tighter, with determination and purpose, and she answered "We fight."

_February 12, 2176…_

"I would think in a job like this, you'd appreciate a slow night."

Garrus shook his head at his patrol partner. "Let's just say enjoying the scenery wasn't exactly why I joined up."

Ridgefield smirked. "Fair enough. I guess I can agree with that."

Garrus simply looked around as they completed their route. He did enjoy the scenery. It was hard not to after living with an artist for so long. The lights, the colors, the way her eyes had brightened when she'd seen it for herself the first time. He smiled to himself at the memory. He might get used to being away from her, but he never missed her any less.

"At least it's less action than Elysium."

Garrus froze when he heard that. "What? What about Elysium?"

Ridgefield looked at him. "You hadn't heard? The batarians attacked the colony yesterday. The Alliance just found out today. They're mobilizing a counter-offensive now."

Garrus was still frozen. The batarians attacked the whole colony. If they had been there for a whole day before the Alliance found out, they must have already done a lot of damage. And they would start with the most populated area. The capital city. Where _Terra _was stationed.

"Garrus? Vakarian!"

Garrus snapped back to attention and noticed Ridgefield looking at him. "Uh…something's just come up. I'll see you tomorrow." He raced off before a response could come. Before he was even out of sight, he turned his omni-tool on and accessed his extranet communications with Terra Shepard, frantically sending a message when direct communication couldn't be established. _Please respond. Please still be alive._

_10101010_

From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
Terra! I heard Elysium was under attack. Are you OK? Please respond as soon as you can.

February 13, 2176  
From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
I'm starting to lose it out here, Shepard. What's going on? Are you alive or not?

February 14, 2176  
From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
Please write me back, Terra. I'm really worried. I heard the Alliance sent reinforcements but I haven't heard much else. It sounds like there were a lot of casualties. Please tell me you weren't one of them. Please tell me you're still OK.

_February 15, 2176…_

Everything was not OK. The base they had barricaded themselves in was a constant drain on morale—the infirmary was burned so they had no medi-gel, the armory had been destroyed so they had almost no weapons to spare, the entire grounds was littered with bodies, and the walls were taking damage. It wasn't helping matters that it had now officially been four days and everyone had been certain reinforcements would arrive within the first two since all Alliance ships had FTL drives and relay transport was all but instantaneous. Terra had to constantly remind them that the batarians had likely knocked out communications, so the Alliance wouldn't have mobilized for another day or two after the raid started.

She elected not to voice the fact that the raid on Mindoir had only taken a few hours, so they were already doing better than she'd expected.

The barricade would give today, there was no doubt about that. But they had taken all the time they could to prepare, the civilians all doing the best they could to arm themselves and helping to set up a series of traps that would hopefully approximate a minefield. Terra had organized their efforts to establish a secondary cover position they could fall back on when the doors came down, gathering all the supplies she could from the remains of the infirmary and armory and emergency stockpiles, all the while countering any attempted barrages with some deterrent grenades that had so far done their job. There were only three grenades left in their supplies, but that wouldn't matter for long. Now her concern had to be gearing up for a final stand.

And hoping to God and all the spirits that the Alliance really was on their way.

When the doors finally began to bend under the pressure from the batarians' four-day assault on this one source of resistance, Terra ordered everyone to fall back immediately. Just because they were going to help her hold out didn't mean they needed to be in the line of fire. She stayed down when the doors gave, but she peeked out to watch in amusement as the traps started going off. Tripwires rigged to their last grenades, metal and glass shards from the dismantled armory and infirmary strewn across the ground, an exposed fuel line rigged to send a blast of fire outward—it was truly gratifying to witness. And that was _before_ the gunfire started to tear through what remained of the enemy ranks. Some of the civilians had a small proficiency in firearms she was able to capitalize on with the few guns they were able to salvage from the armory, but the rest had to fall back and get creative as necessary, all carrying some makeshift knives in case their ranks broke and they needed to defend themselves up close. Terra herself made use of all her training—Alliance and turian alike—to make every shot a kill shot (or at least a shield disable) as best she could. If she was confirming kills, she would probably have Garrus' count beat by now.

When the batarians' advance began to pick up again, Terra threw herself out of cover to draw fire from the civilians. A risky maneuver, but she had her armor back with enough shields to dodge the worst of it. Every time she started to worry she didn't have enough in her to finish this, she thought back to Mindoir, to the fires and the blood, and pondered what the odds were that any of these slavers might have been there. Then she projected that fury into her attacks and tore through them. She'd been helpless then. Not anymore.

One tried to catch her point blank, but she disarmed him and turned the next shot on him instead. One tried to fry her shields to make her an easy target for the others, but she broke his wrist and kicked him in the spine to knock him down. One tried to bypass her completely and go for the civilians attempting to give her covering fire, but she saw him in time to shoot him down. It was only when her adrenaline was starting to run out and she started struggling to catch her breath between assaults that a lucky shot got her in the shoulder with just enough force to knock her down.

The perpetrator stepped over to pin her down, aiming his gun at her head. "Time to end this, human."

Terra turned to face him before he could take the shot, but something else caught her attention. Lights in the sky that didn't come from Vetus. Ships. Even from here, she could hear them popping out of FTL to arm a counterstrike. She smiled. "Too late."

Either he heard it, too, or her reaction gave it away, because she saw all four of his eyes turned shocked before drifting momentarily to the sky.

In that moment, she took action, drawing the knife from her boot and then sweeping his legs out from under him so he'd drop down to her level. As he fell, she sunk the blade into him and used him as leverage to leap back onto her feet. The sudden jolt of victory from seeing her hopes met had just given her enough of a second wind to again fire her gun into as many targets as she could meet before it overheated, giving her the breathing room she needed to sound the retreat. The few civilians that were on the field with her followed her back into the command center of the base to seal themselves in and watch the Alliance end the fight for them. Terra continued to cover them as they all went through the door, throwing herself in last to seal it behind her. She could already hear the invaders outside pounding on the door, but they'd need some heavy explosives to break it and they had bigger problems now. If nothing else, she had the time she needed to lead the civilians further in and contact those ships.

There was a bunker in the command center that was reinforced precisely for protecting civilians from enemy bombardment, so that was where they ultimately fell back. Just in case the main door did eventually collapse like the barricade, she sealed them in to buy them some extra time before making her way to the COMM center. COMMs were still down, but now that the ships were in short range, it was simple enough to establish a channel. She was still not a technical wizard, so she was especially pleased when she saw the connection was established. She reached to turn it on—

"I wouldn't."

She quickly turned around, holding her gun at the ready.

One of the warlords leading the assault stood there, already holding his weapon on her. "You've given us a lot of trouble, human."

"I try. How'd you get the door open? I didn't hear any explosions."

"It was easier than you think to hack that one, at least long enough for me to get in. The explosives are on the bunker." He held up a detonator.

She tensed up, though she did her best not to show it. The bunker could take enough force that the civilians would stay inside, but if the door came down… "You're bluffing."

"But you won't risk that, will you? Now call off those reinforcements."

He could be bluffing. She could even be able to shoot him down before he hit the button. But he was right. She couldn't risk it. She turned back to the terminal, reaching for the COMM.

"Do you think I'm stupid? The gun!"

She looked down at the gun in her hand. She'd turned her back on him now, but…but…

She looked up at the window behind the terminal. She could see his reflection in it. A plan formed in her head. Riskiest one yet. She could only pull it off with split second timing. But she could do it. She had to.

Slowly, she reached the gun up over her shoulder to holster it…and then at the last second before it collapsed into the holster, she pulled the trigger.

Her aim even from the reflection was spot on. The shot knocked the detonator right out of his hand. Then, while he was stunned, she whirled around to fire on him directly, once through his shields and once through his upper left eye. When he hit the ground, she stormed over to let off one last shot just to be sure. Then she took a moment to catch her breath and turned back to the COMM. "Alliance vessels, do you copy?"

_"…copy. Identify."_

She breathed easier when she heard the response across the line. "Terra Shepard of the Illyria outpost. The batarian forces are scattered if you deploy now. Don't fire on the base or the city—we have civilians in the command bunker and there may still be some that didn't evacuate."

_"Copy that, Illyria outpost. We're on our way."_

She sighed with relief as the connection cut out, slumping to the floor and watching through the window as their long awaited reinforcements mobilized on what remained of the invaders.

When the Alliance forces finally came to clear the base, Terra led the civilians out to meet them. When they told her they were currently reestablishing the communication network, she suddenly realized that it had been four days since Garrus heard from her and he had probably gotten word of the invasion. She told the other soldiers she was going to help the COMM technicians and hopefully catch up on the sleep she was missing. On the way there, everyone she passed called her a hero.

She was just glad it was over.

_10101010  
_From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
I'm sorry I didn't contact you earlier. Communications were disrupted and not much was getting through off-world connections. The batarians did attack while I was on leave. The rest of my squad is KIA. The local civilians were convinced we were going to be overrun. It looked that way considering we had slavers and warlords on all sides. But I wasn't going to stand by and let those monsters destroy another colony like they destroyed mine. I took charge, proved to the civilians that we could hold them off. When they started breaking through our defenses, I managed to drive them back. It was a long, hard fight, but we got through long enough for the Alliance to send in the reinforcements that drove them off-world. I'm safe, Garrus. It's over. I've really needed you, though. Write me back, alright?

February 16, 2176  
From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
I saw the reports. You really managed to hold your own, singlehanded against, what was it, _10,000_ batarians that were trying to kill you?! None of those colonists would've made it if you weren't there. I couldn't be prouder, Shepard. Your family would be proud, too. Guess I don't have to tell you anymore how to not get yourself killed. Maybe when we meet up next, _you_ can teach _me_ a few tricks.

February 17, 2176  
From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
I'll hold you to that. It's been kind of crazy for me since the Alliance moved back in. Admiral Hackett heard about what I did during the assault and congratulated me personally. He said he'd be honored if I worked with him one day. Apparently, he's not the only one impressed, either. The Alliance brass wants to award me the Star of Terra (ironic, huh?) and add me to the N7 program. I think the ceremony will be broadcast on Citadel channels, too, if you wanna watch. And come see me sometime if you can.

February 18, 2176  
From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
I saw the ceremony, _Lieutenant_. Wasn't half as good as being there and seeing you in person, but I'm glad I got to see it. I miss you back here. Things are tougher at C-Sec than I was hoping. It'd be nice if we could have some target practice sessions again. Those were the days, huh?

From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
Yeah. Those were the days.

_February 19, 2176…_

Three days after the Hero of Elysium was commended and promoted to N7, Garrus was spending his time off-duty in the club Purgatory. He sat at the bar, drumming his talons against it. Anyone just looking at him passively probably would have considered him bored. Really, he was lost in thought of the days he spent with Terra Shepard on Palaven and her exploits stowing away on his mission with the turian military. Those days, they were inseparable. At heart, they still were. But things had changed over time. And it had been far too long since he saw her. The past week had shown him how much he stood to lose if something happened to her. The last thing he wanted—the last thing he could take—was to lose her now.

"Waiting for somebody," a familiar voice suddenly sounded just behind him, "or are you just enjoying the atmosphere?"

He stopped moving. For a moment, it seemed like time was frozen around him. It couldn't be… He turned to face the voice.

Just behind him stood a 22-year-old human woman with wavy brown hair and sapphire eyes.

"Terra!" He didn't have time to think about it before he had jumped to his feet and pulled her in to hug her, completely disregarding the looks and murmurs of the crowd around them at the sight of a human and a turian embracing in such a manner.

"Ow," his human suddenly winced, flinching to her right.

Garrus quickly pulled back. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, it's just…" Terra groaned, rubbing her left shoulder and rolling it in its socket. "…took a few hits in the fight and a couple of them are still bugging me a little. Should be back to normal in about two days."

"Are you sure you're alright?"

She smirked. "Let's just say I'm a lot better now that I'm here with you."

He appreciated the thought, but it made him wonder. "What are you doing here anyway?"

"Got some time off after the big promotion and I couldn't think of any place better to spend it than with you."

Garrus smiled. "How much time do we have?"

She shrugged (with her right shoulder, at least). "I'm waiting to get called in. Might only be five hours or I could be here for five days."

"Guess we better make the most of it."

She nodded. "While we can."

They sat there for a few minutes just talking before Garrus had to step aside to take a call. Terra simply sat there, watching him go and fingering her necklace.

Almost immediately, though, her happy mood was soured by the arrival three human males.

"So," one of them said, "what brings a girl like you to a place like this?"

She wanted to roll her eyes and say "Not you." but she settled for turning to give him a dismissing look. "Just visiting a friend." To make it clear the conversation was over, she turned to rest her hands on the bar. They didn't get the message.

"Friend, huh?" the second one commented, "Would that be the turian that just walked off?"

"Don't be ridiculous," the third scoffed, shaking his head, "A bird playing friends? He probably just wants a good time from her, if you know what I mean."

Terra stopped moving when he said those words. Slowly, her fingers rolled into her palm, clenched into a fist so tight that she could feel her nails digging into the flesh at the heel of her hand. She turned to look over her shoulder at him, menacingly…

Garrus wrapped up the call as quickly as he could, turning to head back to his human. Suddenly, he heard a commotion erupt across the room, the sounds of bones cracking and the cries of people writhing in sheer agony echoing off the walls. He rushed back to the central area of the bar.

Terra smiled when she caught sight of him, stepping casually over the moaning bodies of three unconscious humans to rejoin her turian at the back of the room.

"What happened?" Garrus asked.

"Oh, them?" Terra said in a playful tone, "I think they had a bit too much to drink. Must have fallen and hit their heads."

Garrus looked at her for a moment. When he realized what really happened, he suppressed a laugh, shook his head, and walked off with her.

Good thing he was off duty, or he'd be obligated to call this in.


	13. Under the Surface

Chapter 13: Under the Surface

Wounds can harm or kill  
The deepest wounds are those that do not bleed  
Scars may fade or intensify  
The deepest scars are those you cannot see

_October 9, 2178…_

Terra smiled as she looked at a picture on her omni-tool. She'd taken it with Garrus on the Presidium, the last day of her visit after Elysium. They'd had a full four days to spend with each other before the Alliance decided they wanted her back. Since then, he'd made detective in C-Sec (she was very proud and definitely did not call him "Sherlock Vakarian" for a week) and she'd completed N7 training. Somewhere along the way, people had completely forgotten she was the girl from Palaven, leading her to believe it still wasn't in her file somehow, and had just seen her as the hero of Elysium. People were constantly asking her if she really did face off 10,000 batarians singlehandedly, and she was starting to wish she had kept count so she could definitively say "yes" rather than "it sure felt like it."

"Terra Shepard?"

She turned off her omni-tool and turned to face the voice calling her name. She'd been so busy remembering she had forgotten she'd been called over to meet someone. "That's me."

"I'm Captain David Anderson," the older soldier greeting her said, "It's nice to finally meet you."

"Likewise," she nodded as she saluted.

"I came with a proposal," Anderson said as Terra followed him through the hall, "but I wanted to talk to you first. I only know you from your service record. Which, I'll grant you, is quite impressive."

"I appreciate that, sir. It was—" She stopped when her omni-tool beeped. She sighed, checking it quick. "Sorry. Extranet message. …can't go one day without checking up on me…"

Anderson smirked. "Boyfriend?"

"Oh, no! No, more like a brother."

"'Brother'? …I thought…"

She stopped walking, Anderson consenting to follow. "…yeah, I…lost my whole family during the raid on Mindoir. He's the one who found me and took me in when it was over. Brother by adoption, really. Or something similar, at least."

Anderson nodded before continuing on the path, letting her fall back into step beside him. "So where is he now?"

"On the Citadel. He's a cop, investigator for C-Sec."

"I'm surprised I haven't heard about this then. There aren't that many humans in the ranks."

"What? Oh! No, he's a turian."

Anderson stopped dead in his tracks so suddenly that anyone less coordinated might have stumbled completely. "_What_?"

"Garrus Vakarian. He was on the turian scout ship that first investigated the raid. I had nowhere to go on Earth, so he took me to Palaven and I lived with his family for two years as a 'refugee.' I listed him as my next of kin when I enlisted, so I figured you would've seen it on my service record."

He blinked. "No, that…that wasn't on there."

"I know it's unusual, but he taught me all the skills I've been using in the service." She looked back on Kyrix and Mitchell almost reverently now. "There've been people who gave me a hard time over it."

That much he could understand. "I see. I fought in the First Contact War, but there wasn't really time then to see what they were like. I guess you'd know better than anybody."

"Better than any human, at least. I'd like to think so."

He almost laughed as they went back to walking. "Maybe you should've been the human ambassador, at least to the turians."

She actually did laugh. "A nice thought, but I didn't train my diplomacy skills. I trained to help people where I couldn't help my colony. I trained to serve the Alliance and, maybe one day, the galaxy itself."

"An admirable goal. I'm starting to like you, Shepard."

She smiled. That thought was mutual.

They walked around and just talked for a while, getting to know each other. It was only when they wound up back where they started that Terra remembered he had called her there for something other than a chat.

"What was it you wanted again, sir?" she finally asked upfront.

"Ah, yes, that. See, I like to get to know my crew personally before they come onboard with me."

Crew? _Onboard_? She looked at him in amazement as his meaning settled in. "Are you…?"

"Asking you to join my command on the _Tokyo_? I am."

Amazement turned to shock. He wanted her to serve on a ship with him. This was _huge_. She'd wanted to see the galaxy, but she'd never thought…

"Well?" he pressed, "What do you say?"

She smiled, saluting. "I say 'What time do we take off, sir?'"

_10101010_

From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
You are now officially talking to a member of the crew of an Alliance cruiser! Captain Anderson invited me onto the _SSV Tokyo_ and I'll be serving under him for the next…well, unless someone officially reassigns me, I guess. We're setting off in three days. I'll let you know how it goes.

From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
That's amazing! I'm really happy for you, Terra. Good luck out there. Show them what you can do.

October 10, 2178

From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
It just occurred to me it's going to be a lot harder to visit you from now on. Oh, well, more leverage for you to come see me instead.

From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
Oh. You're right. I wasn't even thinking about that. …it's kind of strange thinking about us that way. There are some days it takes me a while to remember that we're so different. Anyway, it wouldn't change anything. We can always message and it would take _a lot_ for me to not want to go see you. And who knows? Maybe we'll dock on the Citadel now and then.

_October 21, 2180…_

Black market business was always an issue. C-Sec had long since accepted there was no way to shut it down entirely and had started using it as a means of tracking down major offenders. If there was ever a spike in one particular type of trade or a minor shift in all of them at once, they knew something was up and they started investigating. The one Garrus had noticed was especially bizarre.

Organs. Someone out there was illegally selling _organs_. And a lot of them.

He had been running numbers all day while he waited for results from a lab test. He had managed to track down a sample and bring it in for the lab workers to examine, and he was preoccupying himself in the meantime with seeing if he could find a lead just through the data they had on the black market sales. No results so far, but it never hurt to check. Any minute now, one of them would find something—

"Vakarian!"

It took a minute to realize they were talking to him. Up until last month, hearing his last name thrown around the office was a 50/50 with his dad around, but Castis Vakarian had finally, remarkably, retired and gone back to Palaven. Garrus was now the sole detective on the force with that name, so he responded.

The lab tech he'd handed the sample to was bringing back the results. "Turian liver. Creepiest thing you've handed me yet, by the way."

He shook his head as he started looking over the results. "Any sign of where it came from?"

"No, but the DNA tests came up with something…weird."

"What exactly constitutes 'weird' in a case like this?"

"The turian this liver belongs to is in the Upper Wards. And he's still alive."

…that _was _weird. Garrus quickly filed the lab results with the rest of the data for the case. "Send me his info. We need to find out who he's been talking to, where he's been—"

"You're gonna need a lot of warrants for that if he doesn't wanna talk."

Ah, the dreaded W word. He sighed. "I'll get on it. Just see what you can do to give us more intel."

The tech nodded and headed back to the lab.

Garrus simply turned back to the case notes, wondering where to go from here. He could already tell this wasn't going to end well.

_10101010_

From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
I need you here. I need someone to talk to. This case I'm on is killing me. We've got a lead to investigate but all the waiting for warrants is harder than anything else for this one. I wish you could help me play detective. It'd be nice.

From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
I'm sorry things are going so rough for you. I wish you were here, too. I miss having you with me. Sometimes I miss you as much as I miss my parents and my brother and my sister. Obviously, it's not as hard on me to miss you as it is to miss them. But I _really_ miss you.

_October 28, 2180…_

It had taken five days to find the link they were searching for. Dr. Saleon, a salarian geneticist the turian with the "missing" liver had previously worked for. Garrus had been certain this was the lead they needed when they turned up at his lab, but no. The lab was perfectly normal, not an organ out of place. Garrus knew enough about reading people to know the doctor himself wasn't on the up and up, though, so he insisted they look into it further, check with some of the other people who had worked for him. If nothing else, one of them might be able to tell them something the turian hadn't.

Today, that method paid off. But it wasn't pretty.

They were halfway through questioning a human when he started coughing up blood. Garrus immediately got him some medical assistance, not listening to the debate when their detainee started panicking and eventually passed out. It was only when the medics started running scans that they found out what was going on. They found incisions all over the body, many of them received in the last week. Instincts screaming at him, Garrus had them run a full x-ray scan. What they found shocked them. There were signs not only of several recent surgeries…but of several malformed extra organs.

Saleon had done this. He was using the poor people he hired as test tubes. Living, walking test tubes. Cloning their organs inside their bodies and taking them out to sell, unless they didn't grow right, in which case he just _left them in there_. How many people had been walking around, slowly dying from the inside out where no one could see it?

Garrus could feel his body tensing so hard his talons dug between his plates. He finally told the medics to save the scans as evidence and set to work compiling a case. This psycho had to be stopped.

"There's not enough ground for an arrest warrant, Vakarian," the executor said almost immediately after Garrus presented his findings.

"Sir, we can't just sit around fishing for clues any longer," Garrus argued, "Any minute, another one of his test subjects will die or he'll realize we're onto him!"

"And if it's actually not him and we arrest the wrong person? Proof first, accusations later."

Garrus went along with it, but he didn't have to be happy about it. He didn't need proof to _know_ he was right. It was the same instincts his father had said would help him immeasurably on this job, the ones that had never steered him wrong, the ones Terra both shared and admired. She would back him up if she was there, but it was just him.

Sometimes, when he hit a wall on his case, he'd think that having her as a partner rather than a soldier would solve all his problems. No such luck, though.

Back to the search then. Keep connecting the dots, keep running the numbers, keep having the lab check samples. The doctor might hide his evidence well, but it was still there. He couldn't hide forever.

_November 4, 2180…_

It had taken almost a week to make the case and prove Saleon was behind it all. Garrus had been certain this would be it and the bad guy would finally get what was coming to him, but now he was worried all that waiting had given the bad guy a chance.

"You're making _me_ antsy, Vakarian," said the officer accompanying him for the arrest.

Garrus shook it off. "Sorry. I've just got this gut feeling something is gonna go wrong."

"Things usually do," the officer shrugged as they approached the lab, "That's part of why we're here."

"Yeah, well, sometimes that doesn't change any—"

That was when the explosion went off.

Garrus was knocked onto his back by the force as the blast of fire shattered all the windows in the lab. He pulled himself together as quickly as he could, getting up to search the area. There didn't seem to be anyone else close enough to be injured by the blast itself, but there also didn't seem to be any sign of Saleon. He must have rigged the lab to blow and run. He'd known they were coming.

While his fellow officer was calling in the explosion, Garrus searched for some sign of where Saleon had gone. There wasn't any, but he already knew the doctor wasn't going to stick around on the Citadel. When he received a notice from C-Sec that there was an unregistered ship taking off from the docks, he knew who was on it. So he raced back to headquarters and went straight for the traffic control station.

"We've got a lock on the ship," one of the traffic officers confirmed, "Scanning it now."

Garrus was already tense. They couldn't let this maniac get away. They had to stop him.

"Got it," the results came, "Saleon is definitely onboard, but there are two dozen other life signs on there with him."

"He took his employees as hostages…" Garrus realized. That…that was too far. This monster had to die. "Shoot him down."

The executor immediately stepped in. "Belay that order! We can't risk blowing the ship so close to the Citadel."

"Then cut him off at the relay!"

"We'd still kill the hostages!"

"They're dead anyway if he starts his experiments back up again! We can't just let him escape!"

"It's too big a risk! Hold fire! We'll have to disable the ship and infiltrate it."

"He'll just start killing them the second we get close!"

"Our options are limited, Vakarian." Waving off his subordinate, the executor turned to the techs. "Target his engines."

Garrus could've told them it wouldn't work. They didn't have time to make precision shots before he was out of range, not without collateral damage, and the first shots they made would bounce off his shields and alert him that he was under fire. The plan fell through almost immediately.

Saleon was gone.

At the end of the day, Garrus went home and threw the first table he saw into the wall in rage. The psycho had gotten away and there was nothing he could do to stop it because of C-Sec's endless protocols getting in his way at every turn. Now all those hostages were going to die slowly, along with whoever else was unfortunate enough to cross the doctor's path before he reestablished himself somewhere else. Garrus had _warned_ them and they _hadn't listened_ and _look what happened_!

He was tempted to just spend the night throwing things or off at a shooting range to air out this fury, but no. Sometimes that didn't help. He wasn't really up to talking about it, but there was one person he could vent with. As far as C-Sec was concerned, the case was officially closed now, so he could tell Terra all about it. So that's exactly what he did. He poured out his every frustration in one long message to describe the entire debacle.

Ironic, he realized, that he was essentially asking from her what she'd asked of him the night of her first mission. Like she'd said, who else could he turn to?

_10101010_

From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
I'm sorry, Garrus. I know this must be killing you. But you did the best you could. What happened is not your fault. You can't blame yourself every time a case goes wrong. That's going to happen sooner or later no matter what you do.  
Promise me, at least, that next time you'll remember there's always another way. I know it seemed like the best option at the time, but you'd never have forgiven yourself if your order got those hostages killed because you couldn't see any other solution in time.  
I'll be there for you no matter what. And you will catch him someday. When the time comes, if I can, I'll even help you. Remember, Garrus, there's nothing we can't do together. You always know where to find me.

From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
Garrus? Any better?

From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
Not really. But thanks for trying.

From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
You didn't fail. Don't let this get to you. Do you need me to call?

From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
No, it's fine. But I appreciate you being there, Terra. It means a lot to me just to have you. I honestly can't imagine life without you anymore. Please come see me next time you get a chance. I need to see you again. It's been way too long.

From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
Yeah. It has been too long. And I think we've both changed a lot since then. If I've learned anything in my life, it's that you need to take the moments while you can. I was going to surprise you, but, since it's tomorrow, you might as well know now: I have some time off and I'm coming to the Citadel to meet you.


	14. Inevitability

Chapter 14: Inevitability

Nothing is meant to last forever  
Nothing is meant to be inevitable  
But some things will always happen  
Some things transcend eternity

_November 5, 2180…_

The news that Terra was coming had been a bit too good to be true. Especially given the timing. But Garrus knew her well enough to know she wouldn't joke about something like this. So, by noon, he was waiting at the docks for some sign of his human's arrival. As time drifted by with no sign, he started to think maybe it was too good to be true and he should just go home. Then he saw an Alliance cruiser pulling into one of the lower docks and his hopes skyrocketed.

Five minutes later, he turned a corner to see Terra stepping off a docking bay elevator, smiling at the sight of him, and all but dropping her pack to rush over and hug him. He laughed as he returned the embrace.

"It's so good to see you again!" she beamed as she stepped back to properly face him.

He smiled back. "It's even better to see you, trust me. The ship just happened to be taking shore leave on the Citadel?"

"Sort of. Captain had business on station, said we could take a couple days off before heading back on duty."

"Wow. That was generous."

"Yeah, well, uh…he also wanted to meet you."

Garrus was stunned by that statement. "He—_what_?"

"So!" They both turned to see Anderson himself approaching. "I take it this is the great Garrus Vakarian."

Garrus gave Terra a brief look. "You bragged about me?"

Terra gave Garrus a perfectly innocent shrug in response.

Garrus silently noted to himself to have a talk with her later. Then he turned to greet and salute the captain. "Captain Anderson, yes?"

Anderson smirked. "Yes. Did she brag about me, too?"

Terra noticeably turned away from responding to that one.

Anderson simply kept his focus on Garrus. "I hear you're the one who taught her the tricks of the trade."

"Not so much 'taught' as 'helped her learn,'" Garrus shrugged, "She's a natural talent."

Terra nudged him. "Now who's bragging?"

Garrus answered with a look to silently say he could balance the scales by giving her a hard time. "I hope she hasn't been giving the crew any trouble. She has a reputation for that, you know."

Terra immediately switched from nudging to outright whacking him in the arm.

"She already told me about her time on one of your missions," Anderson said, "Seems that's part of how she picked up on her calling."

Garrus could've argued the wording on that statement. Before Elysium, he still saw her as the displaced artist, the one she still was at heart. It was a lot harder to argue now that she was a war hero and he knew better than anyone what she was capable of (they had gone in some combat simulators during previous visits, after all, so he had seen for himself how she pulled it off). "She's a unique one, that's for sure."

Terra simply eyed him. _Still bragging._

"She is," Anderson agreed, "Which is why she's making commander."

Terra froze. This was news to her. "I'm sorry, what did you just say?"

Anderson smirked. "You heard me. Brass already approved my recommendation…even after agreeing to finally update your service record to reflect your stay on Palaven."

Terra stood there staring at him in shock for a while before Garrus finally nudged her. "That's…thank you, sir. I won't let you down."

"I know. Frankly, we need more like you, Shepard. But since you're 'unique,' we'll just have to make the most of what we have."

Terra smiled. This meant a lot more than she could say.

Anderson finally stepped back. "I have places to be. I'll leave you to it." So he exchanged some brief farewells and salutes before stepping away.

And the second he was gone, Garrus turned to smirk slyly at his human. "CO's pet."

She nudged him again. Harder. "Shut up."

He laughed before leading her off. "Seriously, though, he's a good one. I can tell. I think you've found an assignment you fit in."

"Clearly," she agreed, "And Anderson's been a pleasure to serve under. He's taught me a lot. Been a regular Obi-Wan."

"A…what?"

She sighed. "I did not introduce you to enough human vids."

He shook his head. "Send me a list for my off-duty hours, then."

She followed him all the way out of the docks before she brought up the reason she had cancelled her plans to surprise him. She didn't want to mention it while the topic was still sensitive, but she could see him tensing and even shaking after the silence hung over them for too long. It was worrying. She finally took his hand to calm him and asked the question she'd been avoiding: "Are you OK?"

He didn't answer at first, except to clutch her hand in return. When they came to a stop at the Wards entrance to the docks, he led her over to a bench and sat down with her. "Not really. But you being here helps. _Tremendously_."

She smiled at the sentiment, but she knew hollowness when she heard it. Hearing it on Garrus' voice was something she _never_ wanted. "I am here. So you can talk about it."

"I appreciate the thought, Terra, but I don't think talking is going to help this one."

"Maybe not, but _not _talking about it is just going to make it worse."

He couldn't exactly argue with that. With a sigh, he forced himself to comply. "I just can't help feeling like it was my fault he got away."

Terra gave him a sympathetic look, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Garrus, you should already know that's not true. It wasn't the first case you had that ended badly."

"No, it was just the worst one yet."

"What could you possibly have done differently?"

"Found the evidence faster, kept it quiet we were looking into him specifically, had someone watch his lab—"

Terra finally brought him to face her. "Garrus, listen to me. You are the most determined, brave, and capable person I've ever met. You have a good heart and a strong mind. You never let anything get in your way. That is what makes you the best at whatever you try to do. Everyone loses a fight or two eventually. It's just a fact of life. You need to accept that and remember why you're here." As he mulled this over, she let her own feelings on the matter show. "…plus, you're my best friend. I don't like seeing you this way."

He hadn't realized she thought so highly of him. And meant it. It was quite the confidence boost. He was still upset he had been unable to take in the maniac behind it all, but the maniac was off the Citadel now, at least. That didn't make him feel better, but she was certain that he had done all he could. If nothing else, she was right that she hadn't come to see him so he could spend the whole visit wallowing in failure and venting about his mistakes. He had to shake it off. For now. "Right. Thanks for listening, though."

Terra nodded. "What are friends for?"

He smiled softly. "Picking you up when no one else can."

"And giving you hope when you lose yours. It's nice I'm finally getting to pay you back for what you did for me the day we met."

"So that's debt repaid, you're done with me now?"

"Nah, I've gotten a bit attached to you along the way. I think I'll keep you around a while longer."

He smiled genuinely now. "Yeah, well, I can't say I would mind. I've gotten a bit attached to you, too."

She smiled back. "Guess we're stuck with each other then."

Garrus was about to come up with a witty response when his COMM beeped. He groaned. "Hold on." He stepped aside to answer. "Vakarian."

_"Why aren't you checking in?"_

He winced at the sound of the asari's voice on his line. One of the other officers. He'd forgotten he was still on the roster for the week. "Uh…something came up."

_"Look, I know yesterday was…a lot, but the executor still wants as many people as possible checking there's not gonna be any unforeseen consequences for the populace."_

"Can you at least try to cover for me? I'm trying to spend some time with my hum…sis…uh…_friend_."

_"Your…what?"_

Garrus groaned. He hadn't had to explain Terra to anyone before. He was just now realizing it was a bit difficult to. "I have a friend on active duty and she's only gonna be here for a couple days. I figured no one would miss me since I'm not exactly up to par right now."

_"That's…sudden."_

"Yeah, well, she only told me last night. After the 'a lot' went down."

_"Right. Never mind. I'll take care of it."_

"Appreciate it."

_"Yeah, yeah, you can thank me by picking up one of _my _shifts next time."_

_Fair enough._ He wrapped up the call quickly and headed back over to Terra.

She looked up at him as if she was concerned. "Everything OK?"

"Yeah. Just making sure I have enough time for you."

She smirked, rolling her eyes. "I'm very demanding that way."

"Well, you deserve a little attention." So he took her by the hand again and they went off to spend the next two days with just each other.

_November 7, 2180…_

"I still say I won."

"Garrus, it was a tie."

"Which means we count for draw distance."

"Now you're cheating."

"Across the simulator means double points, fair and square."

"Then I get double for cutting off that shot that almost took your shields down."

"…that's the last time I issue a kill count challenge with you."

Terra just smirked and turned her focus on retying her hair into her distinctive style. "You're just saying that 'cause you know I'm getting more practice and I'll eventually win."

Garrus shook his head. "Yeah, well, that still counts as points for me since I showed you some of those tricks." Once he said so, he watched in slight fascination as she draped her ponytail over her left shoulder and smoothed her bangs over her right eye.

She took notice as she finished. "…what?"

He shook it off. "Nothing, it's just…well, turians don't have hair and it's been a while since I've seen you do that."

She gave him a wary look. "Don't go playing the 'alien' card on me now, Vakarian. I think we're past that."

He had to consent that. He had stopped looking at her as a human within weeks of bringing her to Palaven. Which was indirectly the source of the fascination since he sometimes forgot she was so different from him. He quickly doubled back on the conversation to avoid giving voice to this. "I do get to shoot things on the job, you know. It's just that there's a lot more oversight and repercussions."

"'Paperwork for every bullet,' I'm hearing."

"Something like that. Not to mention all the red tape and the 'probable cause' and the…" He sighed. "Let's just say some things were easier in the military than they are on the force."

"So make the system work for you once in a while."

"And how do you suggest I do that?"

Terra scoffed. "I know it seems otherwise, but I'm not actually a stranger to skirting regulations. Alliance soldiers aren't exactly supposed to wear fancy jewelry or let their hair down on duty. I've gotten away with it by hiding the necklace under my tags and constantly citing the actual rule about what defines 'pulled back.' Anderson's the first CO I've had that hasn't even bothered to call me out on it." She leaned over to make her point. "You know the rules well enough, you find some ways around them just by going through them."

He could see where she was going with this. He did have a pretty good handle on the rules after eight and a half years on the job. He just had to get a bit creative every now and then, think things through. "Anyone ever told you you're actually really clever?"

"A few people, but it's nice to hear it from you." After she said this, though, something occurred to her. She turned to look at the floor as the thought slowly sunk in and her mirth turned reminiscent. "Huh."

He looked at her, not sure whether to be concerned or confused. "What? What is it?"

"We've known each other for ten years now."

They had realized this six months ago, but it was only now she said that he really considered it. "Oh. I guess we have. That's…a long time."

She gave a small laugh. "It is." She looked at him, remembering those ten years fondly. "I hope you realize those years have been good. You've been the best friend I could ask for. …possibly the best thing that ever happened to me."

He smiled. "And I hope you know that goes both ways."

They both sat there for a moment, slowly gaining a new appreciation for how much they meant to each other. He had been her guiding light in the worst days of her life and given her the strength to become who she was now. She had been his anchor through storms of doubt and given him someone to lean on when life was too much to face alone. They'd been the best of friends for ten years despite the animosity between their peoples and how their paths had diverged. Still inseparable. Still unstoppable. Still going strong. It was something to be truly grateful for. Something to never let go of.

It was only when Terra's omni-tool went off that they remembered they were on a time limit. When she checked it and sighed sadly, they both knew that time limit was up. "I have to go."

He had been dreading those words, no matter how much he knew and accepted that they were coming.

She didn't say goodbye. She just hugged him.

He hugged her back. When she tried to pull away, though, he didn't let her.

"Garrus, you have to let go sometime."

"…even if I don't want to?"

She sympathized but didn't have a choice in the matter. "I don't want to either. But we have to."

He understood, no matter how much he didn't like it, so he backed off.

"Good hunting," she told him.

He nodded. "Stay safe out there."

She assured him she'd do her best and she walked off.

He sat there, watching her head fearlessly back into the fray, and started counting the days until he'd see her again.

_10101010_

November 8, 2180  
From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
Best surprise visit ever. Don't wait too long to come back.

From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
I'll see what I can do.

_December 1, 2181…_

Terra was feeling pretty pleased with herself. It had taken three years for her to figure out when exactly Garrus' birthday was, and she still considered herself to be making up for lost time (she was also operating with a vague approximation centered on early winter, but she figured it was close enough). She'd spent what few credits she had from soldier's pay—though she admitted there wasn't much _she_ was going to use it on—making sure her chosen gifts arrived at his door today. The results had been worth the effort.

Just three little gifts. A copy of the poem she once sang for him, now expanded to reflect their relationship. A visor with some fancy specs she didn't understand but caught would be invaluable in firefights, especially for skilled snipers. And a holo of one of her most recent artworks, a drawing of the Citadel horizon…with the two of them in the distance looking out at it. Just three, but it had been more than enough.

Five minutes after she received notice of successful delivery, Garrus had called her. It had opened with an almost obligatory "You really didn't have to do this." Then it had almost immediately shifted to 100 different iterations of excited thanks that almost made her burst out laughing in the mess. From the way he was going on about the visor specs she hadn't understood, she gathered it was probably going to become his equivalent to her necklace in that he probably wouldn't be taking it off in…ever.

"Glad I made your day," she commented.

_"You do have a gift for that."_

"Three gifts by my count."

_"Shut up."_

She just barely kept from laughing that time. He had picked up quite a few of her traits over the years and some amused her more than others. An observation that went both ways, she'd admit.

_"I guess since you're an officer now, I shouldn't keep you."_

"Or you can just call back before lights out."

_"Either way. And Terra? …thank you."_

She smiled. She could hear enough from his tones to tell he wasn't talking about the gifts this time. "Anything for you, Garrus." After they disconnected, she went about her business as usual with a measure of elation. There was something about knowing she made her best friend happy like no one else could that was very satisfying.

As the ship headed towards their next destination, she kept her eyes fixed on the nearest viewing glass and watched the stars pass. From the eyes of an artist, it was a beauty to behold, one that would be a true challenge to capture in a simple drawing, and to the eyes of a self-proclaimed explorer, it was a map to all the worlds she longed to see. She wanted to see every horizon and learn of every culture. Even if none of them would be as special to her as Palaven.

"Enjoying the view, Commander?"

She smirked as Anderson came to stand beside her. "Yes, sir."

He smiled. "Our galaxy's an amazing place. Sometimes it's easy to forget how big it is."

"Or how similar we all are, species aside."

"Yes. If only everyone could see it the way you do."

"Maybe we should pitch the Alliance a 'cultural exchange program.'"

He laughed with her. "A nice thought but a hard sell. …though I suppose we're getting closer."

She looked at him curiously. "What do you mean?"

"I just received word the Alliance is opening talks with the turians for a special project. No news yet about progress or even what they're hoping to accomplish, but I figured you'd like to hear given your…unique situation."

She did like to hear it. Her native people and her informally adopted people finally getting along was a step towards a better galaxy, as far as she was concerned. If they could stay that way, she'd be happy. Happy like she hadn't been around anyone but Garrus or Solana since the raid. "If there's anything I can do to help with this 'special project,' I trust you'll let me know, sir."

He nodded. "You're the first one I'd call, Shepard. I'll keep you informed as best I can. As you were." He stepped off to resume his command post.

As he walked away, Terra returned to watching the stars she adored. Pretty soon, things were going to change for all of them. And she would be there to see it.

_10101010_

April 11, 2183  
From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
Just wrote to say happy birthday.

From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
Thanks. I think I might have just gotten the best birthday present ever: Captain Anderson is going to be at the helm of a new frigate called the _Normandy_. It's a prototype of joint human-turian design. Perfect for me, right? It's using state-of-the-art stealth tech and _I'm_ going to be Anderson's XO on the test drive! I'll let you know how it goes.

From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
I am so jealous right now.

From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
I know.

April 20, 2183  
From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
So how are things going over there?

From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
I've been meeting the crew for the _Normandy_. Most of them are moving over with me from the _Tokyo_, like Doctor Chakwas and Navigator Pressly. Some of the other officers and I have been getting to know each other, Alenko and Jenkins especially. The pilot is fantastic, but his nickname is Joker for a reason. We'll be ready to get moving in a few days. I'll write you back just before takeoff.

May 2, 2183  
From: Garrus Vakarian  
To: Terra Shepard  
I'm starting a new investigation. I'm trying to keep it secret for now, but I'll let you know if I find something you should hear about. I miss you back here. It's been two and a half years now since we saw each other last. I wish we could see each other like that again.

From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
We will see each other again. I just don't know when. The _Normandy_ is taking off tomorrow. Funny thing, though: it seems a turian Spectre named Nihlus Kryik is going to be tagging along. Something tells me this shakedown run is going to be more than we thought. We're headed to Eden Prime as soon as we start out. I'll try to write you back as soon as I can. Talk to you then.


	15. A New Beginning

Chapter 15: A New Beginning

The call of adventure is broad and strong  
The call of duty is bitter and long  
The call of rest is the softest to fall  
But the call of the starbird is the sweetest of all

_May 3, 2183…_

The starbird was a fairytale Terra's mother made up for her children, a bird that flew through space and sang to entice the adventurous spirits of others, a creature that inspired the brave colonists who left Earth to see the galaxy. They had all known it was a children's story, but it became a family thing to say they could hear that call when they practiced their artistic talents, even to the point that their mother wrote her most cherished piece—the aptly-named "Call of the Starbird," Terra's favorite of her mother's compositions—to translate the story for those outside the Shepard clan to understand. Terra had written a poem for it, even given wings to stars in some of her drawings.

Terra felt like that bird now.

She had been walking the halls of this new ship all day. Since it was so much smaller than the cruiser she had been stationed on for so long, she already felt like she had the layout memorized by the time they took off and still she was enthralled by it. The _Normandy_. The beautiful result of turian and human engineers cooperating. She had barely noticed they had taken off, not just because she was so enraptured by the design of the frigate but because it ran so smoothly, so quietly. It was peaceful, comforting. She _loved_ this ship. She'd have to find some way to thank Anderson for bringing her on with him, and as his XO, no less.

Oh. Wait. She was the XO now.

She was back to business at a moment's notice, heading up to the command deck to check on their progress. When she heard the pilot declaring they were approaching the relay, she excitedly but coolly made her way to the cockpit. The _Normandy_'s first jump. She had to see this.

As she entered the bridge, she passed and exchanged brief nods with their guest, the Spectre. She had only met Nihlus a few hours ago, but they already seemed to have established a sort of respectful soldier-to-soldier relationship. It was the first time any turian besides Garrus had so easily arrived at that stage with her. It made her wonder if he'd seen her service record before coming aboard. But now wasn't the time to be worrying about that.

She looked out the main viewport as they sped towards the massive structure that was the mass effect relay. Even though the kinetic stabilizers were active, she still clung to the wall to brace herself as they slid into the field to leap across the light-years to the other side. She could practically feel the rush as the ship was flung through the stars to the Exodus Cluster. Most people who served on ships, turian and human alike, simply took these jumps in stride, but she always found them exhilarating, like the drop in a roller coaster. Just another wonder of the galaxy for the artist in her to admire.

The pilot, Joker, started performing his checks as they dropped back to cruising speed. As usual, Terra didn't understand most of it, so she mostly paid attention to his tone, which consisted of no panic and a lot of pride. Good to hear. "Drift…just under 1500 K."

"1500 is good," Nihlus stated, "Your captain will be pleased." Without another word, he turned to step off the bridge.

Joker watched him go… "…I hate that guy."

Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko turned to give the pilot a confused look. "Nihlus gave you a compliment…so you hate him?"

"You remember to zip up your pants on the way out of the bathroom? That's good. I just launched us halfway across the galaxy and hit a target the size of a pinhead. So that's incredible! Plus, Spectres are trouble, I don't like having them onboard. Call me paranoid."

"You're paranoid. The Council funded this project, they have a right to send someone to keep an eye on their investment."

"Yeah, that is the _official_ story. But only an idiot believes the official story."

Terra smirked as she took position behind the pilot seat. "You always expect the worst, Joker?"

"I'm just saying there's more going on than the captain's letting on," Joker argued.

Terra could agree with that. After all, the Council could've sent any representative to keep an eye on the ship, they didn't have to spare a _Spectre_. It was only when Anderson rang the bridge for a status report and she heard the stressed tone in his voice that she worried maybe something was wrong.

"Better brace yourself, sir," Joker informed the captain after relaying the status report, "I think Nihlus is headed your way."

_"He's already here, Lieutenant."_

Joker winced sheepishly. Whoops.

_"Tell Commander Shepard to meet me in the COMM room for a debriefing."_

After the call was disconnected, Joker turned to look at Terra. "You get that, Commander?"

She simply nodded. "He sounds upset. I hope nothing went wrong the mission already."

As she turned to leave the bridge, she heard Joker comment "I thought the captain always sounded that way."

"Only when he's talking to you, Joker," Kaidan retorted.

Terra snickered at the exchange, but her concerns prompted her to stay on track, waving off crewmen at every turn as she crossed the CIC and entered the COMM room.

She found Nihlus alone inside. "Ah, Commander Shepard. I was quite eager to meet you. Not just the last survivor of Mindoir and the hero of Elysium but kin to Palaven as well. An amazing story, your life. The shining example of what turians and humans can accomplish together, much like this ship itself."

She couldn't help smiling. "I appreciate the sentiment. I wish more people saw it that way."

"Indeed. What is it your people say? 'Competition brings out the worst in people…'?"

"Something like that. Whereas cooperation is best for all. I had hoped the efforts put toward the _Normandy_ indicated we were on the right path."

Nihlus seemed to consider this. "Perhaps. We can hope. But I am also interested in this world we are going to, Eden Prime. A paradise, they say. A symbol that humanity can not only establish new worlds but protect them as well."

Terra had enough experience reading people to know when someone was dancing around a topic. "What exactly are you implying?"

Before the Spectre could answer, Anderson himself walked in. "I think it's time we told the commander what's really going on."

Nihlus agreed, taking the captain's side. "This mission is far more than a simple shakedown run."

Ah. Suspicions confirmed. Terra turned to fold her arms at Anderson. "I figured there was something you weren't telling us."

So Anderson explained what was happening. Someone had found a Prothean device on Eden Prime, a beacon of some sort, and they needed to retrieve it. Simple enough (not that she trusted it to remain that way for long) and fair enough (she was all for sharing knowledge with the galaxy, after all). But that wasn't all.

"Nihlus is here to evaluate you," Anderson finally came out with it.

_That_ Terra _hadn't_ been expecting. "He's…_what_?"

"The Alliance is pushing for more say with the Citadel Council. The first step is having one of us admitted to the Spectres."

Terra was utterly stunned by this news. Her? A _Spectre_? It was an honor she hadn't considered herself worthy of, especially since she would be the first human given it.

But also Garrus would never let her live it down.

"Eden Prime will be the first of several missions together," Nihlus stated, "I look forward to working with you."

"Likewise," Terra said, "but are we sure I'm the best candidate."

"You held off an enemy assault during the Blitz singlehanded," Nihlus pointed out, "You showed not only courage but also incredible skill."

Terra found herself smirking. "Skills I largely learned from one of your people."

"Which is another reason why I put your name forward as a candidate for the Spectres."

She looked to the turian in amazement. "_You _put _my _name forward?"

"Of all the possibilities I saw within Alliance ranks, you were by far the best choice. And once I saw your history, saw that you had ties to Palaven as well as to Mindoir and Earth, I saw an opportunity to improve relations between our two species. A perfect compromise."

She could hardly debate this matter. Put that way, she did seem like the gateway option, which made her the perfect choice to be first considered. Once she saw this, she was slowly warming up to the prospect of being elevated from the orphaned war hero to a genuine champion of the galaxy.

Or maybe not so slowly warming up to it, now she thought about it.

Yep, Garrus was going to be _SO_ jealous.

"This is big, Shepard," Anderson said, "The Spectres represent the Council's power and authority. If they accept a human into their ranks, it shows how far humanity has come."

And showed humanity that aliens could be accepting and thus could be trusted. And they had chosen _her_…

"Shepard?"

She beamed as she faced her CO now. "Where do we start, sir?"

Anderson smiled. Never a hesitation. An admirable quality. Perfect for a Spectre. "We should be getting close to Eden—"

_"Captain, we've got a problem!" Joker's voice came over the COMM._

That was never what you wanted to hear. "What is it, Joker?" Anderson asked.

_"Transmission from Eden Prime. You're going to want to see this, sir."_

Joker relayed the transmission to the holo-screen on the COMM terminal. As soon as it started, Terra tensed up. Eden Prime was under fire. They couldn't see from whom, but they could see it was bad. Soldiers dropping, sounds like war in the background…it was worse than Mindoir. And at the end of it was a horrible sound, a mechanical howl like thunder. Then static.

_"It just cuts out after that. There's nothing."_

Terra kept her eyes on the screen as Anderson reversed the message and paused on one frame. Something massive and spidery stretching from the clouds like a black lightning bolt. Imposing and oppressive and nightmarish. As Anderson ordered her to grab Alenko and Jenkins and gear up in the cargo hold, she knew this was the beginning of something. Something big. Something bad.

They didn't waste time getting mission ready as they approached Eden Prime. Terra still took some small amount of pride in donning her N7 armor, and she was meticulous in making sure her sniper rifle was in peak condition. She gave a small consideration to her necklace, fighting the urge to wistfully reminisce on what it meant to her, before ensuring it was secure inside her armor and holstering all her guns. She was ready for anything. At least she hoped she was.

She wasn't surprised to see Nihlus gearing up to drop with them. She was a bit surprised he headed out solo ahead of them, but they were going to the same place anyway and a Spectre should be more than capable enough on his own for a short while. She made sure to assure Anderson that they would have his back before she took charge and led Alenko and Jenkins to their drop zone.

It was quiet at first. That was suspicious in itself. Terra cautioned them to tread carefully as they made their way from the drop zone to the beacon site. They ducked behind cover as they approached a clearing. No signs of movement so Terra waved them forward. Jenkins took point…

…and two drones flew up from behind the rocks to shoot him down.

Terra reacted quickly, drawing her rifle to snipe down the one on the right and signaling Alenko to the one on the left. Kaidan set off one pistol shot to take out the shields then used his biotics to throw it back into the nearest rocks and break it completely.

Once it was clear, Kaidan approached Jenkins to check on him. With a mournful sigh, he determined there was nothing to be done and closed the fallen soldier's eyes. "Ripped right through his shields. Never had a chance."

Terra looked sadly upon the lifeless body. It was Elysium all over again. But no. She shook it off. She hadn't lost the whole squad yet. She couldn't let this weigh her down. "We'll see he gets a proper burial, but we need to finish the mission."

Kaidan nodded. "Aye-aye, ma'am."

They moved fast now. More drones lurked around the next corner and already knew they were there. They made quick work of them, but the threat was clear to them now. As they came over the next rise, it became even clearer.

Synthetics down the road, taking prisoners and executing them almost ritualistically. One lone soldier ran from their fire, finally dropping to draw her pistol and shoot back. It was with this opening that Terra jumped in and opened fire, sniping down the two synthetics in their path and leaving the last of the drones for Kaidan to finish off.

Once it was clear, Terra stowed her guns and helped the soldier back to her feet. "You wounded?"

The soldier steadied herself. "Not yet." She quickly took notice of the N7 stripe on Terra's armor and stood at attention. "Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 212, ma'am."

"Commander Terra Shepard. What's the situation?"

"Oh, man…we were patrolling the perimeter when the attack hit. They came out of nowhere. My squad tried to fall back to the beacon, but…I think I'm the only one left."

Terra knew survivor's guilt when she saw it. She'd been there. She knew better. "I'm sure you did all you could, Williams." After her assurance had been acknowledged, even if not yet accepted, she turned to look curiously at the synthetics. She'd never seen any like this before. "I don't suppose either of you know what these things are?"

"I think…" Ashley spoke up, "…I think they're geth."

Kaidan looked at her in shock. "What? The geth haven't been seen outside the Veil in centuries. Why are they here now?"

"They must have come for the beacon."

Terra took that as a signal. "Then we get there first. Williams, you're coming with us. Move out!"

There was no argument. They made their way down the path to the beacon site, never once letting anything slow them down. More geth waited at the end of the road, but Terra simply threw a grenade in to soften them up, letting a few gunshots finish them off. Once it was clear, they headed straight to the beacon site…and found it empty.

"The beacon was right here!" Ashley stated, "It must have been moved."

"By who?" Kaidan asked, "Our side or the geth?"

"I guess we're about to find out," Terra sighed as she led them up the ridge to the village. She immediately regretted that their path led through rather than around. The area was trashed, littered with bodies, some of which were mounted on spikes. It wasn't a pretty sight.

"Good place for an ambush," Kaidan warned, "Keep your guard up."

Terra didn't need the warning. She could tell. Something was wrong here and her instincts were screaming to—

What was that noise?

The spikes were retracting, a screech of metal as they descended…and the bodies on them pried themselves free.

"They're still alive!" Kaidan gasped.

"What did the geth do to them?!" Ashley grimaced.

As if in answer, the bodies turned to look at them, eyes glowing blue, veins like wires. With a scream, they charged.

"Take them down!" Terra commanded, already firing every shot she could from her pistol.

The creatures all but exploded as they fell, but at least they fell.

Terra took a second to catch her breath as she holstered her guns. What was going on here?

_Bang!_

Terra tensed. That shot wasn't theirs. It came from over the next rise. "Move! Fast!"

They raced towards the source of the noise but froze when they turned a corner.

"What is _that_?!" Kaidan exclaimed.

"It's a ship!" Ashley declared, "Look at the size of it!"

Terra did. It was bigger than any dreadnought she'd seen, its structure strange and, for lack of a better word, _alien_. The atmosphere seemed to conjure a storm around it simply to reflect the magnitude of its presence. She could already feel a chill, every instinct in her body telling her this was wrong. Very wrong.

She was startled from these observations when the next wave of geth noticed them from the bottom of the hill and turned to open fire. She ducked down, signaling Kaidan and Ashley to follow, and drew her rifle to snipe them down. As if the Alliance had trained them as a team, Kaidan and Ashley coordinated with her well enough to cover her from more of those zombie-like creatures as she tore through the geth ranks. When there was only one left, ducking out of her sights, she holstered her rifle and ran straight in, letting off one round from her shotgun to take down her target.

"Clear," Ashley confirmed as they regrouped.

"Search the area," Terra commanded, "I wanna know where that shot came from."

Kaidan nodded and set to looking around. He didn't see any signs of a struggle or any bodies. At first. When he made his way up a cargo ramp, he froze. "Commander…it's Nihlus."

Terra didn't freeze. It took all her strength, but she managed to stay calm when she heard those words. She made her way over to Kaidan's position to see for herself. Nihlus Kryik lay there, dead, his cobalt blood pooling beneath him. Sadly, she knelt down beside him to give him due respect.

"A turian?" Ashley spoke up, more puzzled than concerned, "You know him?"

Terra simply nodded, making use of what she knew of how turians treated their dead. When she saw his weapon just out of his reach, she rested it carefully in his talons. She hadn't known him that long, but it was the honorable thing to do.

"He's a Spectre," Kaidan explained to Ashley as Terra withdrew, "He was with us on the _Nor_—"

_Crash!_

All three of them jumped to attention, drawing their guns.

"Something's moving!" Ashley observed, "Over by those crates!"

"Wait!" a human stumbled out from behind the crates, "Don't shoot! I'm one of you! I'm human!"

Terra calmed down. Enough to lower her gun, at least. "Sneaking up on us like that almost got you killed!"

"Sorry. I had to hide from those…things." He glanced warily at the bodies of the geth strewn on the ground nearby. As his gaze fell on the corpse of Nihlus, though, he returned his focus to the soldiers. "I saw what happened to your friend. The other one killed him."

Terra gave him a curious look. "What 'other one'?"

"There was another turian. He called him 'Saren.'"

As Terra turned the name over in her mind, she could feel her muscles tightening with rage. She was distantly taking scrupulous note of every single detail in the man's report, but all she was aware of was the thought that another turian had done this. A turian Nihlus apparently knew had been here and shot him in the back. Betrayal? From behind? Where was the honor in that? What turian would do that to someone who clearly trusted him?

She was going to find this Saren. And she was going to make him pay.

First things first, though. She had to save the colony. She had to complete the mission. So when she was positive she had all the info she needed to personally hunt down Saren, she asked the dockworker where the beacon was. He pointed them to the cargo train, saying the beacon was taken to the next dock that morning. And that Saren already went that way. "Get out of here," she told her informant, "find somewhere safe." Then she drew her weapon and stormed down the path to the train, not slowing down for a single shot, not letting a single geth get in her way.

When they arrived at their destination and found that the geth had planted bombs, Terra was even more determined to get through this quickly and catch that traitor. They were under fire the entire time, geth swarming on their position, so Terra had Kaidan try to barrier them and Ashley provide some covering fire as she disarmed the charges. Kaidan couldn't hold it for long, but it was long enough for Terra to jump back in and clear their path to the next one. They were able to repeat the strategy three times before Kaidan had to stop, which brought Terra to outright drop strategy and storm through to the last one. The geth reacted more swiftly than any organic opponent, but her shields gave her enough time to take them down and slide behind cover to the final bomb. She could hear Kaidan and Ashley drawing fire to support her, so she returned the favor when her task was complete and threw a grenade. The geth scrambled, but not fast enough. Once the grenade went off, all it took was a few shots from her pistol to clear the field.

And there was the beacon. A metal tower, bright green light shining in a pillar from the base to the clouds. It was astonishing. What must the Protheans have used this for?

Terra set her curiosity aside for now. Mission first. She turned aside to activate her COMM and signal the _Normandy_ that the beacon was secure.

"This is amazing!" Kaidan said, "Actual working Prothean technology!"

"It wasn't doing anything like that when they dug it up," Ashley noted.

"Something must have activated it." Kaidan moved a step closer to examine it…

…and the field began to pull him in.

When Terra finished the call to the ship, she turned to check on Kaidan and Ashley and saw what had happened. Moving fast, purely on instinct, she all but pushed Ashley aside to rush over and throw Kaidan out of the way. Inadvertently getting caught in the field herself as the force of the beacon lifted her off her feet and wormed into her brain.

"Shepard!" Kaidan called.

_Screaming, metal, blood…_

"NO!" Ashley grabbed Kaidan before he could run to Terra's side, "Don't touch her! It's too dangerous!"

…_fire, pain, too much at once, TOO MUCH AT ONCE!_

Boom.

Terra was thrown back as the beacon seemingly self-destructed. As she collapsed and Kaidan and Ashley rushed over to check on her, she could still see the dark red visions echoing behind her eyes.


	16. Reunions

Chapter 16: Reunions

Across a plain of storms  
Across a chasm of fire  
Across a sea of stars  
I will always find my way back to you

Terra still felt weighed down and shaken when she slowly began to come to. And she did come to slowly. Even though she knew she was coming out of it, it still felt like it took an hour for her eyes to open and her muscles to respond. With a groan and some struggling, she managed to get her limbs to respond and start pulling herself together as her senses started to clear. Sterile. Med bay. _Normandy_. That much was enough to calm her.

"Dr. Chakwas! I think she's waking up."

_You think?_ She pushed the snark away for now, still regaining full control of her body as she sat up and turned to face the doctor.

Chakwas smiled with relief when she saw Terra responding. "You had us worried there, Shepard. How are you feeling?"

_Like my brain exploded. _She shook it off, though. Turians and humans were both stubborn, after all, and she had pushed through worse. …well, maybe not quite worse, but still. "Nothing serious. I just need a minute. What happened?"

"The beacon overloaded," Kaidan explained, "The blast knocked you cold. Williams and I had to drag you back to the ship."

"Appreciate it. How long was I out?"

"About two days," Chakwas answered, "Your scans seem fine, but I detected some abnormal readings—signs usually associated with intense dreaming."

Dreaming. Sure. Terra gave a cursory explanation to wave off any questioning, but the "dream" rattled back into the forefront of her mind now. It still wasn't clear, but it didn't need to be to affect her. It was like a nightmare or a scene from a horror vid on constant repeat. If she wasn't so resilient, she would be quivering with chills and trauma. It took everything within her to push it back and shake it off.

Before Kaidan or Chakwas could speak up with another concern to air, Anderson entered the room. "Shepard, good to see you back on your feet."

Terra smiled now, nodding.

"Doctor, how's our XO doing?"

"Everything looks normal," Chakwas assured them, "I'd say the commander's going to be fine."

"Thank you. If you don't mind, I need to speak with her."

Chakwas and Kaidan both acknowledged the request and left the med bay.

Anderson turned to Terra. "Are you sure you're alright?"

When it came to Anderson, Terra was a bit more cautious about how much to disregard. "Still a little thrown. That whole mission, let alone the beacon, was…pretty intense. Not to mention a failure."

"You saved the colony, Shepard. I'd say you're a hero, even if the beacon was destroyed."

Terra accepted the compliment, but it didn't do her much good.

Anderson seemed to see this and took it as a sign to shift gears. "That's not why I'm here. That other turian, the one that killed Nihlus. We know who he is."

Terra perked up now. She wanted to hear this. She wanted to have all the info she needed to hunt this traitor down and—

"His name is Saren Arterius. He's a Spectre. One of the best."

Terra all but froze. A Spectre? Another Spectre killed Nihlus? One of the heroes of the galaxy? The fact it was a turian was bad enough but _this_? He seemed a much more elusive target now, but she strangely wanted even more badly to take up the chase.

"He's ruthless," Anderson shook his head, "and he hates humans. I don't know how he got the geth to follow him, but this attack was an act of war!"

"It wasn't just that, though. He was there for the beacon."

"He must have known something about it we didn't. Did you find out anything about it when you used it?"

Oh, spirits, did she. With Chakwas, she could simply say she was unsettled, but with Anderson? Best to give him all the details she had. He knew her well enough to know it had to be real to shake her up so badly. "Just before it exploded, it gave me a…vision or something."

Anderson simply gave her a curious look. At least he wasn't looking at her like she was straight up crazy. "A vision? A vision of what?"

She shrugged. "I saw synthetics. Geth, maybe. Slaughtering people. …butchering them."

He could see this was serious. She'd survived the raid on Mindoir. It would take a _lot_ to have this effect. And with what little they knew of the Protheans, there really wasn't a reason to discount it. "We have to report this to the Council."

Terra scoffed. "And tell them what? I had a bad dream?"

"We don't know what was in that beacon. Whatever it was, Saren took it. We can't catch him while he's operating as a Spectre."

She caught on now. "But if we can prove to the Council he's a traitor, they revoke his status."

He nodded. "I already contacted the ambassador to arrange us an audience with them. If you're feeling up to it—"

"Always, sir."

He smirked. "That's what I like about you, Shepard. When you're ready, head up to the bridge and tell Joker to bring us into dock on the Citadel."

Terra merely acknowledged the order before heading straight there. The sooner they were there, the sooner they could take this Saren down. She'd be ready when the time came. He couldn't hide behind the Council forever.

_Four hours later…_

Or maybe he could.

Terra was already growling under her breath and shaking her head as she led Kaidan and Ashley into the Citadel Tower. The Council was already dismissing their accusations, saying the humans had brought this on themselves by settling in the Traverse. That justified standing by while geth slaughtered civilians and batarians raided colonies? And Saren was clearly the teacher's pet in this situation, if their inaction on that front was anything to go by. If he walked away without any retribution for what he did to Nihlus…

"Uh, Shepard?" Ashley spoke up, "You're making _me _tense."

Terra quickly noticed the way she was clawing into her armor and tapping her foot on the elevator floor impatiently. "Sorry. Just a little upset."

"We all are. No need to break anything about it."

Terra shook her head as the elevator stopped. While she led Kaidan and Ashley forward into the Council chamber, she pushed back the seething rage in the back of her mind and focused on the task at hand. Even if the Council rejected their accusations, she'd find a way to finish this herself. She had to. So she made her way forward with her purpose in mind, not paying any attention to those she passed.

Until…

"Saren's hiding something! You have to give me more time! Stall them!"

Terra slowed down for a second. _I know that voice…_

"Stall the Council? Don't be ridiculous! Your investigation's over, Garrus."

Terra froze completely, listening as the second member of the argument walked away.

"…Commander?" Ashley asked.

Terra ignored her, turning to look back at the turian now standing alone by the fountain. "…Garrus?"

The turian seemed to freeze in recognition as well. Finally, he turned around to face her, revealing himself as Garrus Vakarian. "Terra!"

She rushed over to him, hugging him as soon as she was close enough.

He returned the embrace delightedly. "Are you OK? When I heard Eden Prime was attacked…"

"I'm fine, Garrus," she sighed as she pulled away, "But you have no idea how happy I am to see you."

"Uh…" Ashley stepped over to them, Kaidan close behind. "…you're…friends…with this…turian?"

"Oh!" Terra stepped to the side so she could properly introduce the group. "Kaidan Alenko, Ashley Williams, this is Garrus Vakarian. His family took me in after my…after Mindoir."

"Then it's nice to meet you," Kaidan said, "Any friend of Shepard's is a friend of mine."

"Yeah," Ashley said, "Yeah, that…that's great." She didn't sound particularly convinced of this, but Terra barely noticed.

Terra simply realized what exactly she had heard. "Wait a minute." She turned to look at Garrus. "Did I just hear you saying you were looking for evidence on _Saren_? That's your top-secret investigation?"

Garrus caught on quickly. "And you're the team that reported him on Eden Prime." He actually laughed. "What are the chances?"

But Terra realized something else now. "And you…didn't find _anything_?"

Garrus sighed regretfully. "No. He's a Spectre. Everything he touches is classified."

Terra could feel a small flicker of her hope diminish—if _Garrus_ couldn't find anything in time, there wasn't much chance of making their case—but she stood firm. "He wasn't operating as a Spectre when he helped the geth invade our colony or set explosive charges on it. He was trying to cover his tracks because he knew as well as we do you can't lead an assault that big without leaving evidence _somewhere_."

"Somewhere I can't get to it apparently. I thought I had a lead, but I'm out of time."

"Speaking of being out of time," Ashley finally stepped in, "I think we're supposed to be at the meeting over there."

Terra nodded. "Right." As Ashley and Kaidan set off, though, she turned to tell Garrus one last thing: "He killed another Spectre while his back was turned, Garrus. And set the geth on more civilians than died on Mindoir. We have to take him down."

Garrus agreed wholeheartedly. "He's a disgrace to our people. We _will_."

Terra took those words to heart as she made her way up to the Council stand.

Garrus watched her go at first. Then he thought he might as well hear how this went. So he carefully went up to where he could listen in on the meeting without disturbing it.

From the start of the meeting, they could all tell it wasn't going to end well. C-Sec had no evidence to corroborate their charge of treason and "the testimony of one traumatized dockworker" was insufficient to sway anyone.

Saren was connected over a vid-COMM to defend himself. It wasn't helping matters. _"I resent these accusations," he said, "Nihlus was a fellow Spectre. And a friend."_

"That just let you catch him off-guard!" Anderson retorted, Terra immediately offering support.

_"Ah, Captain Anderson. You always seem to be involved when humanity makes false charges against me." He turned to Terra. "And this must be your protégé, Commander Shepard. The one who let the beacon get destroyed."_

She could so easily have snapped that it self-destructed and she'd had no way of stopping it or that he was the one who tried to destroy the beacon in the first place to cover up his actions. But it was the fact that the second option was even possible that got to her. "You actually have the gall to _lie_ about what you did? What ever happened to turian honor?!"

To her credit, it had the intended effect. Even through the holo connection, she could see him tensing with rage._ "You have no right—!"_

"I have every right. Palaven is my home, too. Clearly, I'm more turian than you'll ever be."

"We're here to hold a trial, Commander," the asari Councilor stepped in, "Let's not lose our heads."

_"This is no trial," Saren declared over the vid-COMM, "These humans are wasting your time, Councilors. And mine."_

"There is one more thing," Anderson stepped up, "Shepard's vision."

Garrus was confused by this matter. Terra had a _what_? He peered around to look at her. He could see the slight shifts in her stance that indicated disquiet over the topic, something he hadn't seen from her in a long time. He was _definitely_ asking her about this later.

_"Are we allowing dreams into evidence now?" Saren waved off the topic entirely, "How can I defend my innocence against this kind of testimony?"_

"I agree," the turian Councilor stated, and Terra could feel their chances dissolving with every word he said.

"Do you have anything further to offer?" the salarian Councilor asked.

Terra shook her head. "You've already made your decision. I won't waste my breath."

The Councilors exchanged some looks for a moment before turning to give their ruling.

"We do not find sufficient evidence to support the charge of treason," the asari Councilor said, "Ambassador, your petition to have Saren disbarred from the Spectres is denied."

_"I'm glad to see justice was done," Saren all but smirked as he disconnected._

Independently of each other, Garrus and Terra both seethed with the same thought in response: _Not yet…but it will be._

As the Alliance team was gathering to discuss where to go from here, Garrus turned to leave the chamber. On his way, he sent a message to Terra over his omni-tool: "If they won't see it, we need to finish this ourselves."

Ironically, Anderson and Ambassador Udina had already arrived at this conclusion when Terra received the message. Behind her back while they discussed their options, she typed back "What did you have in mind?"

Garrus took account of what he had on the lead he'd been denied a chance to follow. He'd caught the trail of someone talking about Saren in the Wards, he just needed to find where it ended. Until then, he figured it was best to split their efforts, so he told Terra "Keep looking on your end. I'll see where this lead goes and let you know what I find. Stay in contact, Saren knows we're onto him now."

Much as she didn't like the idea of staying separate, she agreed with his reasoning and couldn't deny the appeal of joining forces for this case. Saren wouldn't stand a chance against both of them. So she smiled to herself as she responded: "Count me in."

When Udina finally walked away, Anderson turned to Terra. "I might have a way for us to find something to use against Saren. I have a contact in the financial district, a volus named Barla Von. He's an agent for the Shadow Broker."

Red flag. But this wasn't the time to be picky. "On it," she told him. Time to go hunting.

"What about your turian friend?" Kaidan asked as he and Ashley started to follow her off to the elevator, "He's in C-Sec, right? Maybe—"

She smirked, holding up her omni-tool to show the last four messages in her correspondence with Garrus. "Way ahead of you, Alenko."

Ashley took notice. "You two are pretty close, huh?"

"He dragged me out of the hole I was hiding in while my colony burned, gave me a new home, and was the closest friend I had in the whole galaxy for every day of my life since, so yeah, 'pretty close.'"

"You've known each other that long?"

Terra took a moment to think it over. "Wow. 13 years."

Ashley looked at the commander in sheer amazement now. "So you _lived_ on _Palaven_?"

"For two years, yeah." She was catching onto the chief's discomfort and bafflement with the topic at this point, so she addressed it once they were in the elevator. "Alright, Ashley, out with it. Why is my relationship with Garrus such a big deal to you?"

Ashley hesitated. "What, other people just go along with it?"

"No, but they're usually not this concerned by it."

She could see she wasn't getting out of this one. "I just…don't trust aliens. I wasn't expecting any turian to be so _accepting_ of a human."

"Well, take that as a life lesson, chief. They're not that different from us. And if you have a problem with me considering the turians family, if you don't trust _me_ now, you're free to head back to the ship."

Ashley stood at attention now. "No, ma'am. Only turian I'm concerned with is the one that attacked Eden Prime and killed my squad."

Terra nodded. "Good to hear." Before they stepped off the elevator, she turned to look at Kaidan, who'd been shifting into the corner as the conversation went on. "You got any problems to air out, lieutenant?"

"No, ma'am," Kaidan recoiled, "No problems."

"Then move out." So she led them both off. She had no intention of stopping until they had what they needed to bring Saren down.

And she knew Garrus didn't either.


	17. The Hunt

Chapter 17: The Hunt

Secrets are poisonous  
Lies are a knife  
There is no escaping  
The day that they bite

Garrus made his way to the lower Ward markets.

Terra made her way to the Presidium financial district.

Garrus asked around until he found someone who saw his lead personally.

Terra asked after Barla Von until he generously donated a new lead for her.

Garrus learned that someone had been talking about Saren and had gone to the nearby med clinic.

Terra learned that someone had been hired to go after a local thug for selling out intel to Saren.

They both got moving fast.

Terra messaged Garrus ahead of time that she was on her way to C-Sec headquarters to check in on a mercenary currently being reprimanded for making threats to his target, smirking at the response that there was no point in telling her to be careful since she could probably finish C-Sec's job for them. She arrived just in time.

It didn't exactly take long to figure out who she was after. There was an 800-pound krogan sneering at an officer just around the corner from the entrance, after all.

"Witnesses saw you making threats in Fist's bar," the officer said, "Stay away from him."

"I don't take orders from you!" the krogan snapped back.

"This is your only warning, Wrex."

"You should warn Fist. I will kill him."

"Do you want me to arrest you?"

The krogan started laughing. "I want you to try!"

Terra didn't manage to stop herself from laughing when she overheard that. She drew the krogan's attention by doing so. When he looked her way, though, she didn't cower, merely held his gaze.

He finally pushed his way over to her. "Do I know you, human?"

Terra smirked. "Not yet. I'm Commander Shepard. I heard you were after someone with intel on Saren Arterius."

He looked her over. "Hmm. Indirectly. I was hired to go after Fist. Some quarian came to him with intel on Saren and he sold out the Shadow Broker to take it. The Broker hired me to correct that."

"I'm after Saren. I need that intel. This 'Fist' guy knows where it is. And you know where he is."

The krogan considered her more carefully now. Krogan respected strength, after all, and he could see she carried herself with a warrior's grace. She faced him without cowering, which few humans had done, and she was offering…what was she offering? "If you're asking for my help, I wanna make it clear. I'm going to kill Fist. I don't leave jobs half-done."

"We're after Saren," Ashley pointed out, "We don't care about some petty thug."

The krogan smirked. "I wouldn't mind seeing that arrogant turian brought down. My people have a saying. 'Seek the enemy of your enemy and you will find a friend.'"

Terra smirked back. "Mine say something similar. Welcome to the team." She held out her hand.

He took it. "Urdnot Wrex. Fist is in Chora's Den. Just lead the way."

Terra nodded—never hurt to have an actual krogan backing you up—and activated her COMM. "Garrus, we know we're headed. The guy who owns Chora's Den turned traitor on the Shadow Broker, sold out to Saren. Sound like he's got something we want."

_"We'll meet up there, then. My lead is almost…" He trailed off._

That was enough to start making Terra worry. "What's wrong?"

_"The med clinic. Someone beat me here."_

And that was all Terra needed to hear to get moving, just barely remembering to signal Kaidan, Ashley, and now Wrex to follow. "Don't engage. I'm on my way." She could tell Garrus was about to argue this, so she quickly hung up and got on the access elevator to the lower Wards.

"What's going on?" Wrex asked as the elevator got moving.

Terra explained briefly that she had a friend in C-Sec checking another lead for them and he'd found trouble. If one of them were to argue that they should let him take care of it and head straight for the intel while they could, she was armed and ready to retort that they could always use an extra gun if Fist proved difficult, but none of them said anything. Either they already agreed with her or they could see she was concerned for her friend as much as for the mission and thought it best not to go against her. Good they could see she wasn't a commander to be messed with, if this was the case.

She didn't hear any commotion as they approached the med clinic, so they presumably had arrived before the fight kicked off (couldn't be after, Garrus wouldn't go down that easy). She nodded to Kaidan to check the door. He hacked the controls on it, bringing it to slide open just enough that Terra could peer through it and take stock of the situation.

"I didn't tell anyone!" the doctor was crying, surrounded by armed thugs, "I swear!"

Terra only needed to look down to see Garrus there. He'd snuck in somehow and was positioned for a sneak attack. When he caught sight of her, he nodded to the thug leader. She nodded back. Distraction. She could do that. So while the thugs were coercing the doctor, Terra signaled Kaidan to open the door all the way. As soon as he had, she stepped in and drew her gun.

That was enough. The thug leader caught sight of her and grabbed the doctor, holding his gun out at Terra. "Who are you?!"

Terra took aim. "Let her go!" She couldn't get a clear shot from this angle.

But Garrus could. Once everyone's eyes were on the entrance, he slid around the corner and fired behind the doctor to take the leader down in one shot. Then all he had to do was pull the doctor aside and out of the line of fire as the thugs scrambled.

So Terra rushed in after him, laying down fire. Kaidan and Ashley fell into the rhythm they'd established on Eden Prime, covering her and using their strengths to set up each other's shots. Finally, they were down to three thugs in a line behind cover—

"RRRRRRRAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!" Wrex charged in, barreling through all three of the thugs like a strike in bowling and finishing them off with a series of shotgun blasts.

Terra looked at him in amazement.

He shrugged. "What?"

Garrus looked at this in amazement as well. "Uh, Terra? Why is there a krogan following you around?"

She sighed as she took his side and holstered her gun. "Long story."

Wrex looked between them, slightly confused. "Uh, Shepard? Why is your C-Sec friend a turian?"

"…longer story."

Garrus shook his head, turning back to the doctor. "Dr. Michel, are you alright?"

The doctor was rattled but still stood up to check herself over. "Yes, I'm fine. Thanks to all of you."

"What did those guys want?" Terra asked.

"They work for Fist. They wanted to shut me up, keep me from telling Garrus about the quarian."

"Must be the same one I told you about, Shepard," Wrex said.

"She'd been shot. She came by looking for treatment, said she had information on Saren to trade. I put her in contact with Fist because I knew he was an agent for the Shadow Broker."

"Except now he works for Saren," Garrus concluded.

"And the Shadow Broker isn't happy about it," Terra sighed, "He's gonna know _somebody's_ onto him, it's not gonna be easy to get to him."

"Well…there's always the direct approach."

"Then I guess we'd better get moving."

Garrus nodded, quickly thanking Michel before following his human out with Kaidan, Ashley, and Wrex.

Terra hadn't been reluctant about a mission in years, but it still seemed like having Garrus behind her was calming her nerves somehow. It just felt right, finally going into a real fight alongside him. After all, if she had to go into a prolonged firefight with only one other person in the whole galaxy, there was no doubt in her mind he was the one she would pick. Ironic, it occurred to her, that he was following her into this after he was the one who showed her she could do this at all. It didn't matter which way around it was, though, as long as they were in it together. Because as long as they were, nothing could stand in their way.

When they finally approached the club, it was immediately apparent their suspicions were correct. The place was shut down. Terra didn't need to have Kaidan hack the door again to know the place was probably stocked to the rafters with armed guards. No sense in letting them have the first shot. So she slammed on the door controls and, with a small cursory peek to make sure it really was clear of civilians, threw in a grenade. There was an explosion and a scramble of surprised goons before the team took that as their chance to go in guns blazing. A krogan, a turian, and three trained Alliance soldiers? The thugs never stood a chance. Frankly, they wouldn't have stood a chance against _one_ of them. In no time, the five of them were racing through the chaos left by the fight to reach the back rooms.

When the doors opened, two frightened humans stood with guns bared. "Stay back!"

"Warehouse workers," Garrus observed, "We must have gotten rid of all the real guards already."

"I said 'stay back!' We'll shoot!"

Terra sighed, all but holstering her own gun as she signaled the team to stand down. "This might be a good time to find somewhere else to work."

The first human slowly lowered his weapon. "Uh…you're probably right."

"Yeah," the other confirmed as he pushed past them, "I never liked Fist anyway."

Ashley watched them go in amazement. "I can't believe that worked."

Terra just shrugged. "Shooting people isn't always the answer. …now let's go into the next room, where shooting people probably _is_ the correct answer." So she led the way to the last room in the club. Fist would be in there. Not for long.

The second she walked in the door, two turrets started firing, a snarling thug by the name of Fist ducking behind a desk between them. Terra all but rolled her eyes before nodding to Garrus. 3…2…1… Garrus sent out a signal that overloaded the turret on the right, causing an explosion that threw Fist from his cover into the wall and immobilized him. Then Terra and the others merely fired every shot they could at the other turret. Problem solved.

As if it was ever a problem. Terra was getting pretty attached to this team-up.

Terra stormed in, glaring down Fist from his place on the floor as the others bared their guns behind her.

"Stop!" Fist immediately cowered, "Stop, I'll talk!"

Terra wasn't sure if he was a coward or just smart. Either way, she took aim just enough to really intimidate him. "Where's the quarian?"

"She's not here! She said she'd only meet with the Shadow Broker himself!"

"Face to face?" Wrex asked, "Impossible. Even I was hired through an agent."

Terra slowly lowered her gun, letting Fist get up and face her.

"No one meets the Shadow Broker," Fist explained, "I told her I'd set up a meeting, but when she gets there, it'll be Saren's men waiting for her."

Not happening. Terra grabbed Fist by the collar, letting every shred of human and turian ferocity within her loose on his already fragile composure. "Where?!"

"The alley behind the markets! Five minutes from now! You can catch her if you run!"

That was when Wrex cocked his shotgun and fired.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Garrus instantly demanded, Kaidan and Ashley already staring at the krogan in shock.

"I was hired to kill him. Now I have."

"You could have at least let him run first!" Terra snapped, "He'd already surrendered!"

"I told you I was going to! If you wanted me to specify, you might've asked!"

Terra groaned. She was starting to see why turians always said there was no sense reasoning with a krogan. "We can argue about this later! That quarian's running out of time!" So she led them off to race back out of the club.

A second wave of guards had shown up—Fist must have tripped an alarm before Wrex got rid of him—but they barely slowed down plowing through them. The alley wasn't far, but with every step, Terra could feel the dread rising within her that they'd be one second too late. Luckily, that only prompted her to run faster and Garrus knew this station well enough to show them exactly where they were going. Out of the club. Into the halls. Around the corner. Behind the markets.

When they got there in time to see an explosion go off, Terra felt her heart shuddering, the dread slowly being realized. But when the smoke cleared, there was the quarian. Young, female, onyx suit, facing down the thugs that had been sent for her as if she'd seen worse. Terra felt her hope flood back in. Along with some growing admiration for this quarian. She led her team down into the thick of it, at first to lay down some covering fire for the quarian, then to outright take down the thugs threatening her. When the last one fell, the quarian was glowering and seething at the corpse so hard Terra half-expected her to kick it.

"Fist set me up!" the quarian growled, "I should've known better."

"Are you OK?" Terra asked as she holstered her gun, prompting the others to follow.

"I'm fine. I can handle myself." She then turned to look at Terra. Maybe she was imagining it through the mask, but she thought the quarian was eying her in suspicion or uncertainty. "Not that I don't appreciate the help. Who are you?"

"A friend. Commander Shepard, from the Alliance. I hear you have something I can use."

"I suppose I do. And I do owe you for helping me. But not here. Somewhere safe."

"We can take her to the embassy," Kaidan suggested, "Anderson and Udina will want to see this, too."

Terra agreed and led them off.

The quarian stayed quiet as they moved, looking over her shoulder and still eying them curiously as if she was expecting a knife in the back at any moment. Understandable, since she apparently had already been shot for what she was carrying. As they kept going, though, she seemed to cling closer to them as if she felt safer with the ones who'd helped her out. When they came in sight of their destination, she calmed down and followed them in without question. It seemed they may have earned her trust. Terra was happy to see that.

Not so happy to see Udina. "You're not making my life easy, Shepard," he started ranting before he'd even looked at her, "Firefights in the Wards, an all-out assault on Chora's Den?! Do you know how many—?!" When he did turn to face them, he was startled by the presence of three aliens following her. Though all three gave him pause, it was the one now taking the front alongside Terra herself that he chose to directly question. "What's this? A quarian? What are you up to, Shepard?"

Terra smirked. "Making your day, ambassador. She has evidence linking Saren to the geth."

That got his attention. "Really?" He turned to the quarian. "Perhaps you should explain, miss…"

"My name is Tali," the quarian explained, "Tali'Zorah nar Rayya."

"We don't see many quarians here. Why did you leave the fleet?"

"I was on my Pilgrimage—my rite of passage into adulthood. I was traveling near the Traverse when I received word of geth presence nearby. Since they drove my people off Rannoch, they hadn't been seen outside the Veil. I was curious. I tracked them down and, when one became isolated from the collective, I disabled it and removed its memory core."

"I thought geth fried their memory cores when they died," Anderson stepped in to inquire, "some kind of defense mechanism."

"Yes, but my people created the geth. If you're quick, careful, and lucky, small caches of data can sometimes be saved." She held up her omni-tool. "And I saved an audio file." She set it to play.

_"Eden Prime was major victory. The beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the Conduit."_

Anderson perked up immediately. "That's Saren's voice! This proves he was involved in the attack!"

Terra beamed triumphantly. "The Council can't ignore this."

"Wait," Tali cut back in, "There's more. Saren wasn't working alone." She quickly hit resume on the file.

_"And one step closer to the return of the Reapers."_

Anderson answered with a curious look. "I don't recognize that voice."

Terra, however, was frozen. "…Reapers…I feel like I've heard that before."

Garrus, from his position leaning against the wall, looked Terra over carefully. She seemed shaken again. In fact, was she actually _shaking_? He was concerned before but now he was genuinely worried.

"The geth had some information about this," Tali explained, "The Reapers were an ancient machine race that wiped out the Protheans and then vanished. …at least that's what the geth believe."

"Sounds farfetched to me," Udina scoffed.

But Terra really was shaking now. In her mind, the pieces were coming together one by one until she realized… "…the vision from the beacon. I understand it now. I saw the Reapers attacking the Protheans!"

No, _now_ Garrus was worried. Beyond worried. He didn't bother listening to the rest of the conversation as he watched her, wondering anew what exactly happened on Eden Prime. He only noticed he was staring at his human in shock when Wrex nudged him.

"The Council is going to love this," Udina groaned, shaking his head.

Terra knew he was right, but her conviction was rising with every piece that clicked in place. "We have to tell them. If the Reapers are the ones behind the Prothean extinction and there's even a chance Saren is trying to bring them back, it's a threat to us all!"

"Shepard's right," Anderson stated, "We need to tell them everything. As soon as we can."

Udina agreed to that much, at least, and, with a copy of Tali's audio file, went to arrange a new session with the Council, Anderson following close behind.

Once they were gone, Terra turned to Tali. "That must be a weight off. Where are you headed now?"

Tali considered. "Actually, I thought I might go with you."

Terra looked at her in amazement. "What about your Pilgrimage?"

"The Pilgrimage proves we are willing to give of ourselves for the greater good. What does it say about me if I turn my back on this?"

It didn't require much consideration. Tali had already proven herself capable in the fight in the alley, and if there was one thing this mission was going to need, it would be a geth specialist. "I'll take all the help I can get."

Tali took her side, presumably smiling under the helmet. "Thanks. You won't regret it."

After this, Terra took the chance to sit down for once while Kaidan and Ashley got Wrex and Tali up to speed.

It was a matter of two seconds before Garrus sat down beside her. "Are you gonna tell me what happened?"

"Kaidan and Ashley are over there explaining, if I'm not mistaken."

"I want to hear it from you."

She looked him in the eyes and saw the unwavering resolve behind them. She knew him well enough to know he wouldn't back down easily. And she could understand his stance on the matter. He deserved that much. So she took a deep breath and told him everything that went down on Eden Prime. Specifically the fractured vision of genocide that she revisited every time she closed her eyes. It wasn't even worse than the raid. She just couldn't escape what had been burned into her brain.

Garrus could see why she was so shaken up now. It was a wonder she was hiding it so well, and it was a testament to her strength that she was holding up at all. Not even bothering to remind himself that her new squad was right there and might notice, he wrapped his arm around her, lending her strength like he hadn't in…well, 12 years.

She didn't bother pulling away, either. It was just nice to know that, even now, he was there for her.

"Whatever Saren's trying to do, you're going to stop him. I know it."

She smiled. He always believed in her. And it was because of this that she believed him.

She had already made up her mind she would stop Saren, no matter what she had to do. But it was only now Garrus said so that she knew she could.


	18. Promotion

Chapter 18: Promotion

Heroes are not born but made  
Through action and choice  
Through perseverance and compassion  
Through faith and strength  
Lights awaken in darkness

Terra could hear Tali's evidence playing as she followed Anderson up the Council chambers. She gave a self-satisfied smile while no one was watching. If this was how Garrus felt after an arrest, she could see why he chose to join C-Sec.

"You wanted proof?" Udina told the Council, "There it is."

"This evidence is irrefutable, ambassador," the turian Councilor said. Terra had expected he'd be shocked to hear his golden boy was a traitor, but he was incensed. The same reaction she and Garrus had had to knowing a turian was the mastermind behind Nihlus' death and the massacre on Eden Prime. "Saren will be stripped of his Spectre status immediately and all effort will be made to bring him in to answer for his crimes." There was that turian honor Saren had been lacking. Terra could see why he'd been chosen for the Council position.

"I recognize the other voice," the asari Councilor spoke up, clearly dismayed, "It's Matriarch Benezia."

Terra had heard of asari Matriarchs, the oldest and wisest of the people, the ones who advised the young. Hearing that one of them was working with Saren was alarming, so she couldn't blame the Councilor for being appalled and discouraged.

"I'm more concerned with these Reapers," the salarian Councilor said, "What do we know about them?"

"The geth core said they were an ancient synthetic race that wiped out the Protheans," Terra explained, "The geth revere the Reapers as gods…and believe Saren is the prophet for their return."

"Listen to yourselves!" the turian Councilor cut back in, "This is impossible! Where did the Reapers go? Why did they vanish? If they were real, we would have found something!"

On second thought, Terra didn't like him at all. "I saw it through the beacon. The Protheans were trying to warn us. 50,000 years ago, the Reapers destroyed all life in the galaxy. If we don't stop Saren, it will happen again!"

"We have no proof of this," the asari Councilor stated, "We only have proof of Saren's involvement in the attack on Eden Prime."

"Saren is a rogue agent on the run for his life," the turian Councilor pointed out, "He no longer has the resources of a Spectre, the Council has revoked his title."

"That is not good enough!" Udina snapped, "You know he's hiding somewhere in the Traverse! Send your fleet in!"

"A fleet cannot find one man," the salarian Councilor countered.

"A Citadel fleet could secure the entire region, keep the geth from attacking any more of our colonies."

"Or it could trigger a war with the Terminus Systems," the turian Councilor asserted, "We can't risk it."

"But it's better to do nothing?!" Terra stepped back in, "You'll just sit by and watch while entire worlds are under fire?!"

"Shepard's right!" Udina snapped, "I'm sick of this Council and its anti-human bull—!"

"Ambassador!" the asari Councilor quickly spoke up, "There is another way. A way to stop Saren that does not require fleets or armies."

"No!" the turian Councilor snapped, "It's too soon! Humanity is not ready—!"

The asari Councilor turned to placate him. "You were willing when you saw her record. Have her actions changed your opinion?"

The turian Councilor seemed to take a moment to think it over, glancing between her and the humans. Finally, he nodded.

The asari Councilor turned back to the front. "Commander Terra Shepard. Step forward."

Terra hesitated. She looked at Anderson, receiving an encouraging nod. Still not sure, though, she glanced back. Garrus stood with the others at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at the meeting. When he realized what was happening, he smiled and nodded. That was what she needed. With a deep breath, she took that step forward, Udina stepping back to clear the platform for her, and stood ready.

"It is the decision of the Council that you be granted admission to the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch of the Citadel."

Terra felt her heart racing, her spirit flying. This was _huge_. She was actually the first human Spectre. It was as if she had finally been given not just a title worthy of her skill but a reward for her struggles. It was as if her family was looking down on her in pride.

Or at least Garrus looking up at her in pride. That was _his_ human they were giving this to. She had come a long way from that traumatized farm girl he taught to hold a gun. It occurred to him he should probably be a bit more jealous since she got the title he once wanted so badly, but now… Right now, he was too happy for her.

"I'm honored, Councilors," Terra said when the induction was complete. The words didn't seem like enough, but she hoped they said all she needed them to.

"Your first mission is to track down and apprehend Saren Arterius," the turian Councilor said.

_Gladly._ "I'll find him." She spoke the words with all the confidence of a human, all the conviction of a turian. She had no intention of backing down from this task. And no intention of failing.

When the meeting was adjourned, she gratefully received a proud congratulations from Anderson before he and Udina went off to get her a ship. _Her own ship_. Merely at this prospect, she was positively elated as she came down the stairs to meet the others. Kaidan, Ashley, and Tali all gave her excited congratulations. Wrex scoffed at Udina for not thanking her, prompting Terra to remind him that she technically hadn't done anything until they actually caught Saren. Garrus simply smiled at her, all he could possibly say in his eyes, and she smiled back, letting him know his acceptance meant as much as the title itself ever could.

Now that she was officially a Citadel agent, there was nothing to stop her from bringing Tali and Wrex with her, Kaidan, and Ashley when they set out. But when they came to the access elevator that led to the docking bays, she realized something. Garrus was still on duty with C-Sec. He wasn't going to be coming.

As she called the elevator and the others loaded on, she turned to face him sadly. "So, I…guess I'll be seeing you later then."

He didn't respond at first. For once, she wasn't sure how to read that.

She took his hand briefly. "Thank you. It was fun while it lasted."

It had been. So when Terra turned to go, he stopped her. "Wait."

She looked at him, hope and apprehension in equal measure behind her gaze.

Meeting her gaze, though, simply cemented his decision. He looked her in the eyes and said what he needed to with as much conviction as she had declared her mission: "Take me with you."

That was _not_ what she had been expecting he'd say. She was stunned silent, too shocked to initially respond. It was only when she noticed that the others were already on the elevator and holding it for her that she reacted, nodding to them to head down and wait for her. "Garrus, I appreciate the thought, but C-Sec isn't gonna let you take who-knows-how-long off to chase around the galaxy with me."

"Well, technically, you could override them with Spectre authority…or I could quit."

He wasn't suggesting the first option. He was saying he'd already chosen the second. "What? Why? I thought you loved your job."

"I did when I was actually helping people. I'm tired of getting hobbled and letting criminals go free. You saw how their rules nearly let _Saren_ get away! I can do more good helping you." He reluctantly opened his omni-tool. "Plus, I may have already typed up my resignation while you weren't looking."

She looked it over and saw he was telling the truth. He was serious about this. It seemed like she should keep arguing, but she could already see he was right. And if he was really offering to stay with her for longer than a few days, her best friend offering to follow her into battle when she already made it clear he was the one she wanted at her six, her almost-adopted brother offering to go racing across her beloved stars at her side…well, she really didn't have it in her to turn him down.

So she smiled and told him so. "Welcome aboard, Garrus."

Hearing her say that made the whole world seem right, like it hadn't since he first left Palaven without her. He smiled, hit send on his resignation, and walked arm in arm with her down to the docks.

They arrived to find Udina and Anderson waiting, Kaidan, Ashley, Tali, and Wrex standing nearby. Terra was about to ask if the arrangements for her ship had been made when…

"Shepard, good news," Udina declared, "Anderson has decided to step down. The _Normandy_ is yours now."

…when the air seemed to spontaneously thin around her. The _Normandy_. _Hers_. The ship she had fallen in love with the second she stepped onboard, the one built by both peoples she claimed to belong to, the one that she had been so overjoyed to just be the XO of. This…this was…

"She's quick and quiet," Anderson stated, "and you already know the crew. Perfect for a Spectre."

…wrong. This was wrong. _Anderson_ was _stepping down_? That didn't make sense. "This is amazing, sir, but why are you just giving it to me?"

Anderson hesitated. "You needed your own ship. And it was time for me to step down. I'll admit this isn't how I saw my career ending, but…it's your place to finish this, not mine. If anyone can, it's you." He smirked. "And I could tell how much you wanted her."

Terra wasn't content with the answer, but she smiled at this last statement. It was true, after all. She glanced over his shoulder at the ship in question, distantly noting Garrus looking it over in wonder as the others admired it. Her ship. Quite the responsibility. But a prize worth one. "I'll take good care of her, sir."

He nodded. "I know you will."

"The Council is sending us information on Saren and the geth as they receive it," Udina said, "But we already have one lead. Benezia, the asari Matriarch working with Saren? She has a daughter, a Prothean archaeologist. Her name's Liara, Dr. Liara T'Soni. She was last stationed at a dig site in the Artemis Tau cluster."

"I'll head straight there to find her," Terra agreed.

"Good hunting, Shepard," Anderson said as Udina left.

Terra nodded regretfully. "Take care, Anderson."

He acknowledged her well wishes and walked away.

Terra was sad to see him go, like his fading into the distance gave finality to his lost station, but there was nothing she could do about it. Instead, she made her way over to the dock. "We should get ready to take off if everyone's done gawking at my ship." _My ship._ She liked saying that.

Ashley smirked but still saluted with an "Aye-aye, ma'am."

Kaidan followed, though he took the time to give his commander a congratulatory smile.

"Your ship is amazing, Shepard!" Tali declared even as she rushed over to the airlock, "I've never seen anything like it! I can't wait to see the engines!"

Terra snickered to herself. Quarian culture was centered on ships since the migration from Rannoch, so she could understand the pilgrim's enthusiasm, but that only made it more amusing to witness.

Whereas Wrex simply nodded and said "Shepard." as he walked past her.

Garrus continued to look over the ship as he took her side to follow her aboard. "Impressive, what turians and humans can pull off when they work together."

Terra smiled as she led him down the docking tube. "It really is."

She received several salutes as she came aboard. Apparently, the crew had all been informed by now that she was taking command. Also apparently, they were _not_ informed beforehand that she was bringing a quarian, a turian, and a krogan with her, because there were some glances of concern, wariness, and even (at least in Wrex's case) fright. Terra made it clear, now that she had the authority to, that they were offering to help with the mission and they would be joining the crew until such time as Saren was stopped and if anyone had a problem with it, they'd be answering to her. There were no arguments yet, thankfully, but she was eventually going to have to make another announcement or let rumors circulate about what exactly her relationship with Garrus was. Right now, though, they had bigger problems and it was time to set off. So she sent her team to pick their stations and headed up to the bridge.

"Commander," Joker nodded as she came up behind him, "Congrats on the upgrade." He shook his head. "I heard what happened to Captain Anderson. Survives 100 battles just to get taken down by back-room politics."

Terra sighed sadly. "I don't know about this. It feels like I'm stealing the ship from him."

"Well, yeah, but there was nothing you could've done, no one's blaming you."

Terra kept those words in mind. Like Anderson said, she had to be the one to do this. And she couldn't deny that having the _Normandy_ under her command softened the blow. Even now, she was lovingly running her hand against the metal walls and looking forward to how it would carry her across the galaxy to new and distant stars. It was as if she had found where she belonged.

"COMM's open if you want to say anything to the crew."

…she did. Steeling herself to fully adopt the command position, she turned on the PA and said what needed to be said: "This is Commander Shepard. We have our orders—find Saren before he finds the Conduit. It won't be easy. He knows we're coming. But we need to do this. Not just to fulfill the mission, but for the good of the entire galaxy. It's up to us to stand against the rising storm. And together, we will prevail."

Joker nodded. "Well said. Captain would be proud."

Terra took that sentiment to heart. "The captain gave up everything to give us this chance. We won't let him down."

"Aye-aye."

While Terra was settling into her new role, Garrus was giving himself a tour of the ship. It was _amazing_. As he moved down the stairs from the command deck to the crew deck, he heard Terra's voice on the intercom. He smirked as she gave her best attempt at a rallying speech, a smirk that turned genuine when he realized she had succeeded. She spoke as if she was born with the title of commander already upon her, as if she was meant to lead. He might not have anticipated it when he first took her in, but it didn't surprise him. She was inspiring that way. And as turian as she said she was.

It was when he went down to the cargo hold that he felt like he'd found his new post. Peering into the engine room, he could see just how much had gone into this ship's invention, the drive core a sight to behold that Tali seemed to be absolutely gushing over as she took up position near the monitors. The weapon stock Ashley was maintaining and Wrex was casually eying was impressive, likely among the best the Alliance had. When his eyes fell on the rover, he started inspecting the systems with the admiration someone of his technical training would naturally give. Sturdy armor, propulsion jets, heavy weaponry—it'd get them pretty far groundside. Casually at first, he started scrolling through the algorithms on the software with the console nearby.

Then not so casually.

"Find yourself a new hobby already?"

He laughed briefly as he turned to look at Terra. "Probably. Shouldn't you be up in the CIC?"

She shrugged. "Course is set. Figured I should check on the crew." She smiled. "Which includes you now."

He smiled back. "I guess it does. Honestly, it feels right getting back on a ship. Especially with you."

She understood. Much as she felt like she belonged here, it was partly because he was there. "…thank you. For coming with me. I'm glad we finally get to stick together again."

He leaned casually against the console. "We do work best together. Not that I had any doubt you could handle Saren on your own."

She sighed. "Maybe, maybe not. But with you, I _know_ I can."

The thought was somehow both humbling and encouraging to him. It was nice to know she had such faith in him. And that, even if she wasn't relying on him as much as she once had, she still felt like she needed him.

After a moment, she glanced around at the rest of the deck, specifically the other crewmen stationed there. Until such time as it became ship-wide knowledge how much history she had with Garrus, it was probably best to keep things private. "I'm making sure the crew knows my door is always open. Especially for you. …even after lights-out, if you want to talk."

He smirked. "I'll keep that in mind."

She nodded, already beaming at the thought of it, and turned to go. First, though, she glanced at the console he was looking over. She didn't understand any of it, but she could tell it was just the basics. "You know, if you think you can give us an efficiency boost that might help in the field, you can tweak those codes."

"I'm not sure if I should be meddling with Alliance programming unauthorized."

"I'm in charge here now and I say you're authorized. There's no one I trust with it more than you." With that, she left him to it and started checking in on the rest of the crew.

He focused on the algorithms, slowly working up the nerve to start altering the code. Looked like Terra was right—he had found a new hobby already.

Within an hour, the ship had hit the first relay on the route to Artemis Tau. It wouldn't take long to arrive, but it would take quite a while to scan the system they arrived in for any sign of the Prothean ruins their archaeologist was stationed at. If the ruins weren't in the relay system at all, they were going to have to FTL jump to another system and scan it and repeat as necessary until they found something, which would probably take all night.

In the meantime, Terra was easing herself into her new status as CO of the entire ship, familiarizing herself with the crew as Anderson had done. She took special care to make sure Tali and Wrex were settling in alright and no one was giving them or Garrus any trouble, though making one of her first official commands as captain of the ship that three aliens were now to be considered equal members of the crew was clearly a hard sell. Pressly especially wasn't convinced they should be allowing non-humans onboard for the entire mission, but she assured him and everyone else who was uncertain that they were to be trusted. She basically decided that if they weren't won over in a week's time, she was going to have to outright announce her history with the turians. She wondered what the reaction was going to be.

Predictably, their destination turned out not to be in the relay system. Terra had to call it a night while they were halfway through the cluster to the next system and tell herself it was better they go into a mission after a night's rest anyway. Plus, this way, she got to familiarize herself with the captain's cabin and, after lights-out, spend some time drawing before a certain someone eventually snuck in.

Garrus smiled as the door closed behind him. "Good to see you haven't let yourself go out of practice."

She focused on her work until she was content it was close to completion. "You know I would never."

"Yeah, well, some things change when you get promoted." He came to sit down beside her. "You're a _Spectre_ now, Terra! I still can't believe it!"

She couldn't either, but instead of saying so, she smirked. "Figured you'd be jealous."

"Well, yeah, but I'll get to pestering you for it after the pride has worn off a bit."

She snickered, finally finishing her work enough to turn her focus to him. "I'll try to make that hard for you."

"I'm sure you will. You're too good at everything you try."

"Except dancing. Not my forte."

"I've seen."

She pushed him.

He laughed, nudging her back. But in the silence that followed, something occurred to him. She was a Spectre now. That didn't just mean wild adventures and secret operations. It also meant hard choices and limited oversight and the toughest assignments. As the many implications of this realization dawned on him one by one, his mirth faded to concern.

Concern it didn't take her long to pick up on. "What?"

"…just promise you'll be careful while you're making it so hard for me."

"Don't tell me you still worry."

He hesitated to answer.

That was enough to make her see that yes, he did still worry about her, though he did so considerably less lately, but it was more than that. "Wait, you…you don't actually think I'd end up like Saren one day, do you?"

"No! No…though Dad might."

Oh, yeah. She was kind of dreading the next time she called home now.

Garrus sighed. "It's not that. It's just…being in command, seeing the kind of things a Spectre does…it changes people. I don't wanna see it change you."

As she saw what he meant, she started to understand his concern. With a sympathizing look, she took his hand. "That's why we need friends—to keep us grounded. And you're the best one I could possibly have."

The feeling was mutual. He clutched her hand tightly, wishing he didn't have to let go.

They spent the next hour or so simply talking. It was strange how, despite being in constant contact for 13 years now, they never seemed to run out of things to tell each other. They knew each other better than any other two people in the galaxy, yet they still had things to share. And ways to surprise each other.

While she was sitting down on her bed, Terra asked what she'd been meaning to since he made his offer: "Garrus…be honest with me. Why did you really want to leave C-Sec? It didn't exactly take much to spur you on, which means you'd been thinking about it even before this mess with Saren went down. But you didn't say anything to me."

He hadn't. He regretted that. It wasn't that he was keeping it a secret from her, he hadn't made up his mind yet at the time. But she was right, he had been thinking about it for some time. With a sigh, he confessed. "Ever since Saleon got away, the job's just kept getting harder. I tried doing what you said and making the system work for me, and it worked for a while, but there wasn't always a solution. So many times, I'd be certain of a suspect and then second-guessed by a superior for lack of evidence, and all the time we lost finding more was time for them to keep breaking the law. It just felt like the insistence on doing things so by-the-book was getting in the way of me doing my job at all. And if I can't help anyone, then what's the point?"

"Everybody has doubts sometimes," she said, "That doesn't mean you have to give up."

"I'm not. Like I said, I can do more good here with you. I just can't keep going into a case wondering if doing everything right isn't going to be enough again. Or that it'll get impeded by restrictions and red tape and I'll be fighting the urge to slip around it."

That drew her to give him a more concerned glance. "Garrus, the rules are there for a reason. I understand they may seem a bit unfair at times, but if you start breaking them, you're no better than the bad guys you're trying to take down."

He scoffed. "And when catching Saren means cutting a few corners? What then?"

She met his eyes with a fiery determination that almost made him regret the question before she even answered it. "I don't have to stoop to his level to stop him. And neither do you."

He sighed, turning away from her to stare at the wall. "I know. I just…I don't know what to do anymore. It feels like I had everything figured out and then the rules all changed at once. And then when I needed them to change again, they got set in stone. And it wasn't just the job, either, it was _everything_." He got up and started pacing the room. "I found something I was good at, something I felt like I was meant to do, and then I started feeling trapped and constrained and _alone_. And I know you were there, but you were still so far away. Now I'm on an actual mission with you and I just don't want to let you down because I need _something_ to go right for once and I can't see how—!" He stopped in his tracks and turned to look at Terra, cutting himself off entirely when he did.

She was passed out asleep in the bed.

He blinked. _Oh._ Now he thought about it, he should probably have seen this coming. She did a good job of hiding it when she was utterly exhausted, but it didn't change the fact that she clearly hadn't slept much, if at all, since she woke up after Eden Prime. And a _lot_ had happened since then. With a shake of his head, he stepped up to slide the covers over her sleeping form. As he did, his talons slid across the fingers she had still curled around her sketchbook. Curiously, he glanced at it, seeing it open to the drawing she'd been working on tonight.

A drawing of the _Normandy_ racing through the stars.

He had to admire the way she had captured it and appreciate how much of her heart had gone into it. As he carefully removed it from her grasp to set it aside, he looked at her, this human he cared so deeply for. Suddenly, he shuddered to think what might have happened had he not been able to convince that turian commander to investigate Mindoir or if he'd checked a different sector or if they simply hadn't found her. He couldn't imagine living without her.

Then again, he thought with a small smile, she probably still would have found a way into his life eventually. They had a sort of magnetic pull between them, one that had kept them tethered to each other across astronomical distances for 13 years. No. Like she had so poetically said so many times, they would always find each other.

Laying his hand on hers one last time, he turned to leave the room and let her rest before setting to find a place to catch some sleep of his own. Tomorrow, they started their journey.

They had a long journey ahead of them.


	19. The First Mission

Chapter 19: The First Mission

The place you belong is never complete  
Without the people that belong there with you

They were in the Knossos system when they found where they were headed. Therum. A hot planet with an entire underground Prothean facility. Their archaeologist would be there.

The Mako only seated three, so that would have to be their groundside team size limit. Terra considered that a shame since all five of them had dominated the fights in the Wards so easily, but she had enough faith in all of their individual talents to know two would be enough. Garrus was coming with her, no question. He was already gearing up before she'd even declared they were underway. It was hard to narrow down who would be going with them, though. Kaidan had biotic strength, Ashley was a combat expert, Tali would be invaluable if they came up against geth, and Wrex was a _flipping krogan_. Finally, Terra came to the conclusion that Ashley, quite frankly, needed some field time with Garrus to get used to the idea of working with a turian, and called her over.

If anyone but Joker had been piloting the ship, the landing might not have gone so well. As it was, they almost immediately came up against opposition with about a dozen clicks between them and the dig site, leaving Terra to growl under her breath about how he could've gotten them a bit farther ahead. Not that the geth they encountered were any match for the Mako's cannon. When the first fight was over, she turned over her shoulder to give Garrus an impressed smirk.

He shrugged as if to say _No big deal._

She shook her head. _Big deal, actually._

With Ashley on the gun and Garrus on standby for repairs, it didn't take much to mow down the opposition all along their path. It was how deep the geth had dug in that worried Terra. They had set up turrets, barricades, and even an outpost. They had been here a while. That didn't pose good odds for their archaeologist. Asari were tougher than they looked, though, so Terra just took it as a signal to hurry. The geth didn't make it easy on them, but they didn't stop them either.

When they got to a wall the Mako couldn't cross and had to jump out to keep going, they kept their guard up. It wouldn't be as easy on foot, but they were ready for it. Good thing, too, since all it took was turning a corner to have bullets start flying at them. Their shields caught the worst of it long enough for them to find cover, and it only took a few well aimed shots to clear the path. They pushed forward to a clearing, which proved to be especially arranged to quickly kill intruders, because even the available cover was in plain view of a volley of snipers.

Which might have won the geth the fight if the three of them weren't all some of the most skilled snipers in the galaxy. Terra gave the signal for them to duck down and they started lining up shots. In no time, they'd picked off the entire firing line and cleared the field.

"…wow," Ashley commented.

Terra smirked. "Keep that up and we'll be unstoppable." She led them up the ridge and saw the dig site just ahead.

The second they approached, a drop-ship passed overhead and dropped an armature in their path with a series of foot soldiers to bolster it.

"…never mind. _Cover_!" She ducked behind a wall, Garrus following her as Ashley took the other side. She stowed her rifle—sniping wasn't going to help now—and cocked her shotgun. The second she poked her head out, one shot took down a geth trooper; the next second, she had to duck back to swiftly avoid an incoming energy blast from the armature.

"Well, I didn't sign on for easy," Garrus shrugged as he leaned around the corner to shoot down a scuttling geth hopper.

"Good, 'cause I think this is gonna be about normal pretty soon," Terra commented as she took out the next trooper.

All three of them were able to quickly eliminate the foot soldiers, but the armature simply kept firing. When Terra attempted to keep up the standard procedure of peering out to aim and fire then backing up to avoid taking any, she found its shields were already recharging from her initial assault in a matter of five seconds.

Lucky for her, she'd brought Garrus. Smirking at her turian, she nodded to it. "Think you know how to open it up for us?"

He smirked. "As a matter of fact…" He waited for the next shot to go off, then he ducked out long enough to overload its shields. The exposure gave Ashley a chance to cut into its hull, staggering it slightly. Just slightly enough that Garrus could then follow up with a sabotage to its main guns. That didn't keep the energy blasts from starting up again and send them ducking back behind cover, but it did give Terra and Ashley both more freedom to simply unload on it. When they had it softened up enough, he waited for an opening again and then aimed a sniper round directly into the light on its head.

In a rain of sparks, it deactivated and the fight was over.

Terra took a moment to catch her breath. "That, my friend, was what we humans call 'legendary.'"

Garrus laughed. "What's that other thing humans say? 'Takes one to know one'?"

She laughed with him before clapping her hand against his.

Ashley came over, eying this in wonder. "You taught him how to high-five?"

"Oh, very early on."

"And very painstakingly," Garrus added.

Terra shook her head. "It's not my fault you have talons." Before he could retort, she headed over to the dig site entrance, drawing them both to follow close behind, and opened the door.

The dig site itself wasn't anything special, and the geth presence in here was negligible, but the Prothean ruin, hidden behind barriers none of them could make sense of, was impressive. It made Terra wonder what the Prothean civilization must have been like, what this site must once have been. It was a shame they were lost so long ago, but that made archaeological work even more important. She got the feeling she was going to have questions for the one they were looking for.

The elevator that took them down to the bottom of the dig site was broken and only made it halfway before stopping and opening. The platforms on the other side were broken as well, leading to a drop straight past one level and directly to the lowest. Geth must have done something here. Not a good sign. Terra dropped down—

"Hello? Can you hear me out there?! I'm trapped!"

Terra turned in confusion to see someone on the other side of the barrier. An asari, caught in an energy field. "Dr. Liara T'Soni?"

"That's me," she answered, "Who are you?"

"Commander Shepard. I'm with the Alliance. We're here to help. …how did you get in there?"

Liara sighed. "I was trying to hide when the geth came. I knew the barriers would protect me, but I must have hit something I wasn't supposed to. I activated some kind of security measure. The only way to turn it off is with the console on this side."

Garrus scanned the barrier. "Good luck getting through."

"We'll find a way," Terra stated.

"Hold on," Ashley stepped up, "Her mother's working for Saren. How do we know she's on our side?"

"'Side'?!" Liara reacted, "I'm on nobody's side! I haven't talked to my mother in years! I just want out of here before those things come back for me!"

Terra hadn't known any asari personally, but they were similar enough to humans that she could tell this was stress and not deception speaking. "The geth caused a lot of damage in here trying to get to her. She's clearly not working with them, chief."

Ashley didn't seem quite convinced just yet, but she trusted her commander's judgment. For now, at least. "Understood, Commander."

"Come on. We'd better start looking for something to get past these barriers. Hold tight, doctor, we're on our way."

They spread out trying to find a solution. Garrus continued scanning the barrier itself to make sure there wasn't a weakness they could exploit. Terra ducked under the broken platform to see if there was a path around the geth had opened up when they were trying to get through. Ashley kept her eyes on the area around them, weapon at the ready if any other geth tried to come through. As she was watching the area, though, she noticed something…

"Hey, Commander!"

Terra turned.

Ashley pushed aside some rubble to reveal a mining laser propped up and aimed at the rocks beneath the broken platform.

Terra beamed. "Now we're talking!" She hurried over, Garrus promptly coming behind her. "See an on button anywhere?"

"I don't think so."

Garrus stepped in. "Allow me." He took a moment to look it over before finding a console he could access through his omni-tool. "Needs an activation code."

Terra thought it over. "Maybe they wrote it down somewhere—"

"Got it." Garrus had hacked in.

Almost immediately, the laser turned on and blasted a hole under the rubble, clearing a path to an elevator behind the barrier that likely led straight to Liara.

Terra blinked. Then side-eyed Garrus. "…still a showoff." Rolling her eyes, she led them down, through, and up.

Liara was surprised to see them. "How did you get back here? I didn't think there was any way past the barrier!"

Terra smirked. "Superior firepower. The mining laser still had some juice for us to use."

"Oh. Yes, I can see how that would work." She nodded to the console on her left. "That console should allow you to deactivate this immobilization field."

Terra nodded and carefully pressed a few buttons.

Liara was dropped to the floor.

"Are you OK?" Terra winced.

Liara pulled herself up and shook herself off. "Yes. Yes, I'm fine."

"Good. Now how do we get out of here?"

"That elevator should go all the way up to the exit."

Terra nodded and led her onto the elevator platform with Garrus and Ashley.

"I still do not understand all of this," Liara said, clearly still shaken, "Why would the geth come after _me_? Do you really think Benezia is involved?"

"Saren is looking for the Conduit," Garrus shrugged, "You're a Prothean expert. He probably wants you to help him find it."

Liara seemed even more confused. "'The Conduit'? But I don't know—"

That was when the whole cavern shook.

"What was that?" Ashley asked, clearly concerned.

Liara took a moment to put the pieces together. "These ruins are not stable. That mining laser must have triggered a seismic event." She rushed to activate the elevator. "We need to get out of here before it caves in!"

Terra thought fast, turning on her COMM. "Joker! Get the _Normandy_ down here _now_!"

_"On our way, Commander! ETA five minutes."_

Terra groaned as she turned her COMM off. "Best pilot in the galaxy can't get here a little bit faster?"

Liara managed to get the elevator moving. It carried them up to the level where the exit was located, but that was when things turned sour.

Their clear path out was blocked by a krogan, a squad of geth backing him up. He glared them down fiercely, brandishing a shotgun. "Surrender! Or don't. That would be more fun."

"In case you haven't noticed," Terra snapped, "this whole place is falling apart!"

"Exhilarating, isn't it? Thanks for letting those energy barriers down for us, by the way. Now hand the doctor over."

Liara recoiled but stood firm. "Whatever it is you want, you're not getting it from me!"

Terra admired her resolve but noticed her uncertainty. She quickly moved in the asari's defense, taking the front to flippantly declare "She'll stay with us, thanks."

The krogan sneered. "I don't think so. Saren wants her, and he always gets what he wants." He turned to the geth. "Kill them!"

They didn't move one step before Garrus had shot down their sniper. No one else got off a shot, though, before one of the geth opened fire and set them scrambling.

Terra quickly helped Liara off to the side. "Williams, take care of the geth! Garrus and I got the big guy!" Once Liara was safe, Terra turned to look Garrus' way.

He nodded, readying his assault rifle.

She readied her shotgun and took his side.

The krogan charged straight for them while Ashley had the geth busy, but Terra and Garrus simply side-stepped, sending him tumbling between them and leaving an opening for Terra to shotgun him in his hump. Unfortunately, that just made him angry. Fortunately, that meant he started going straight for Terra, giving Garrus a chance to overload his shields and open fire. Splitting his focus allowed Terra to outright jump him and start firing her shotgun directly into his head. By the time he managed to force her to dismount him, he was critically injured and having trouble seeing. But he didn't need to see to throw himself backward while she was directly behind him, sending her tumbling back into the wall. She couldn't recover faster than he could regenerate, so he had his shotgun primed to take her down before her shields were even back up. Instead, Garrus sabotaged his gun and unloaded on him. When Terra attempted to help Garrus pin him down, though, the krogan sent out a biotic attack that threw them both. He followed by charging again, but then Terra noticed Ashley struggling with a geth shock trooper behind her, so when the krogan came close, she rolled out of the way and sent his momentum into the geth. Ashley smirked, making a note to thank the commander for her quick thinking later, and sent her next several shots into the krogan instead. Then, while she drew his attention, Terra and Garrus both lined up sniper shots. When they signaled, Ashley ducked aside and they both fired together. The krogan hit the ground, clearly not getting up. Terra was tempted to fire off a few more shotgun rounds to make sure, but another tremor cut through that plan, forcing her to rush over and grab Liara as they all started running for the exit.

Just as they got out, the entire ruin collapsed behind them.

Terra took a moment to catch her breath as the _Normandy_ came down to pick them up.

"Lot more fun than the simulator, right?" Garrus nudged.

She shook her head at him. "Let's not make a habit of it."

Ashley almost started laughing. "You two are insane."

"Thank you."

Ten minutes later, they had dropped off their weapons in the cargo bay and brought Dr. T'Soni up to the COMM room to take part in the mission debrief. Terra spent the whole trip up carefully making sure everyone was uninjured and compiling a report for Joker to send to the Council. Once they were in the COMM room, she took up the command position here for the first time and—

_"Too close, Commander!" Joker commented from the bridge, "A few more seconds and we'd have been swimming in molten sulfur."_

Terra smirked. If she didn't agree with the sentiment and like that pilot so much, she might even sum up the nerve to bite back.

_"The _Normandy_ isn't really equipped to land in exploding volcanoes. They tend to fry our sensors and melt our hull. Just for future reference."_

Once he turned off the PA, Liara turned to give an incredulous look to Terra. "We almost died out there and your pilot is making jokes?!"

Terra waved her off. "It's a coping mechanism. You get used to it."

Garrus smirked. _You really do. It's contagious._

"I see," Liara nodded, "Forgive me, I don't have much experience with your species, Commander. I should be thanking you. Those geth would have killed me or dragged me off to Saren."

"What did Saren want with you anyway?" Kaidan asked, "Do you know something about the Conduit?"

"I have heard of it in my research, but no. I've found almost no record of it, and I've been studying the Protheans for the last 100 years."

Terra looked at her in amazement. She'd known asari lived a long time, but she hadn't been around them long enough to see if their aging process was different from humans because of that. Liara seemed her age. "Just how old are you?"

"I hate to admit it but I'm only 106."

"'Only'?!" Ashley said, "I hope I look as good as you when I'm that age."

Liara didn't seem to take it as a compliment. "I realize it seems like a long time, but among asari, I'm barely considered more than a child. That's why my research hasn't been given the attention it deserves."

Now Terra felt like they were onto something. Something she wanted to hear. "What have you found?"

So Liara, rather enthusiastically, explained how her studies of Prothean ruins had led her to some theories no one else had discovered. Like how the Protheans' empire was too vast to leave so few ruins behind and some evidence seemed to indicate they weren't the first race to mysteriously vanish. "It's as if someone came along after their extinction," she said, "and cleansed the galaxy of clues." She said it like it was a grand discovery to change their known history. And it was.

But to Terra, it was something worse. Because Liara's story added up with what they now knew. And if the Protheans weren't the first, then who was? How long had this been going on? When Liara seemed to realize she was rambling and calm down, Terra spoke up and told her: "We know what wiped out the Protheans, doctor. It was a synthetic race—the Reapers."

Liara was stunned silent at first. "The…the 'Reapers'? But I have never heard of…how did you find this out?"

"There was a beacon on Eden Prime," Terra explained, as if this was a perfectly normal thing to have happened, "It burned a vision into my brain. I'm still trying to make sense of it."

Liara seemed utterly bowled over by this. "This is incredible!" She launched straight back into her enthusiasm, practically gushing over the idea of knowing someone who had found working Prothean technology and managed to use it.

"This isn't helping us find Saren!" Kaidan finally had to cut back in, "Or the Conduit."

Liara caught herself. "Right. Forgive me." She turned back to Terra. "I do not know anything else, but that does not mean I cannot help you. I would be safest from Saren and his geth here, and my knowledge of the Protheans could prove valuable on your mission."

"And her biotics would come in handy when the fighting starts," Wrex agreed.

All valid points. Terra didn't see a reason to turn the asari down. Maybe her enthusiasm was infectious. "Welcome to the _Normandy_, then, Liara."

Liara smiled. "Thank you, commander. I'm very grateful…" Suddenly, she started weakening, as if the floor was tilting under her feet.

Terra helped her stay upright. "Are you OK?"

Kaidan stepped over to help her. "When's the last time you ate? Or slept? Dr. Chakwas should take a look at you."

Liara merely pulled herself together. "It's probably just exhaustion, coupled with discovering the Protheans' true fate." Which wasn't exactly getting better when she tried standing on her own again. "Though I suppose it couldn't hurt to be examined by a medical professional."

Terra nodded. "Right. Go see the doctor. The rest of you, dismissed."

While the rest of the squad cleared the room, Garrus took Terra's side. "You starting a collection? Trying to see how many non-humans you can have on the crew before someone says something?"

She glared at him. "Trying to prove species has nothing to do with it. I would have thought you learned that as well as I did down the line."

"…yeah. Guess that's something you need to show everyone."

"That and, as a Spectre, I'm allowed to take whoever I need onto the team. Like you."

"'Cause you were having so much trouble against impossible odds without me."

She smirked. "Yeah, well, you give me a boost at times."

He smirked back. They were both good for each other. It was part of why they were at their best when they were together.

_"Mission report's away, commander," Joker came over the PA again, "Want me to patch you through to the Council?"_

Terra sighed. "Might as well."

Garrus took that as his signal to clear the room and left her to the call. It was strange knowing she was working for the Council now. Then again, not so strange. It was pretty much what she was born to do. If only they had as much faith in her as he did. But that was why he needed to stay close to her. Maybe when Saren was taken care of, this arrangement could become permanent.

He never thought he'd be so happy he left C-Sec.


	20. Downtime

Chapter 20: Downtime

Trust is fragile and must be earned  
Respect is scarce and must be learned  
Fear is cold and does not avail  
But friendship is loyal and can never fail

After everyone had recuperated from the mission, Terra took this chance to check on the crew. Joker was quick to assure her the _Normandy_ was performing beautifully—as she would have expected—and to inform her he expected a medal for "pulling your boots out of the fire." She rolled her eyes and decided it was time to get to know him a little. So she sat down in the unoccupied co-pilot seat and asked about his history.

"Oh!" he immediately scoffed, "I see how it is! You looked at my file, didn't you?"

Terra blinked, confused. _Her_ file she could understand causing some strange reactions, but why would Joker be worried? "What?"

"No, no, I'll tell you the same thing I told the captain: I am the best pilot in the whole fleet and I earned every one of those commendations. They weren't just given to me as charity for my disease."

Oh. _Oh_. Terra regretted asking now. "I'm sorry, Joker, I didn't even know you were sick."

He blinked. "You…you didn't…oh boy." He sighed and came out with it: "Alright, I've got Vrolik's Syndrome. Brittle bone disease. One wrong step and _crack!_ It's very dramatic! Don't worry, it's not gonna affect my duties. Put the _Normandy_ in my hands and I'll make her dance for you. …just don't ask _me_ to get up and dance, unless you like the sound of snapping shin bones."

She knew better than to dig at the subject and averted the conversation, eventually getting up to leave him to his work. She headed down to the crew deck next, making her way through the med bay to the office Liara had set up as her bunk so quickly. The asari archaeologist was quick to inform her that she was perfectly fine now and that Dr. Chakwas was very helpful. Terra could attest to that herself. That wasn't what she came down for, though, so she decided to keep up the upfront approach and hope it went better than with Joker, asking Liara to tell her about herself.

"Me?" Liara flinched, "I'm afraid I'm not that interesting, commander."

Terra shook her head. "You underestimate what I find interesting. It doesn't need to be a full background essay. Just tell me about your people or your work or the Protheans."

Liara perked up at this offer. "Alright." So she spent a good ten minutes discussing history with Terra. She talked about asari culture and societal structure, she talked rather enthusiastically about what she knew of the Protheans and how she discovered all of it, she even talked, upon questioning, about asari art and music and how she agreed that it was a shame they hadn't been able to recover any Prothean art. It still astonished Terra that this asari was almost as old as the lunar colonization, but that just meant she had more stories to tell, most of them about how fascinated she was with what Prothean artifacts had been uncovered over the years. "That's why you fascinate me, commander," she eventually said, "You were touched by actual working Prothean technology! Imagine the things I could learn from you!"

Terra gave her a wary look. "You sound like you want to dissect me in a lab somewhere."

Liara recoiled, her eyes wide. "What? No! Nothing like that! I merely meant you would be an excellent candidate for further study. No! Wait! That's even worse!"

Terra struggled not to start laughing. "Liara! Calm down! I was just joking!"

Liara hesitated. "You were…oh! By the goddess, how could I be so dense? Sorry. I have more experience working with dig sites than with…people."

Terra smirked. "Got it. I'll tread a bit more carefully next time." She shuffled out of the conversation after that, leaving Liara to her research and heading across the deck to Kaidan. It was easy to initiate a dialogue with him, and he didn't need much persuasion to open up about his history. She had never known any biotics before enlisting, so she hadn't realized they had it so hard. The story of the turian who terrorized the trainees at BAaT was especially hard to hear. "I'm amazed you don't hold it against all turians."

Kaidan shrugged it off. "No, I actually saw things a bit clearer after that. I hated that turian, sure, but he wasn't a turian to me. He was Vyrnnus. It helped me realize aliens aren't all that different. They're jerks and saints, just like us."

Terra was glad to know he agreed with her on that matter and impressed that he'd arrived at the conclusion through circumstances virtually opposite her own. When he asked about if she'd had any experiences like that with the turians, she reluctantly relayed the highlights of her misadventure stowing away on a turian scout ship. He seemed both astounded and amused, a reaction she took as good. She got the sense she was warming up to him, which was good since they'd be watching each other's backs in firefights for the foreseeable future.

He gave her a questioning look as the conversation wound down. "You make a habit of getting this personal with everyone?"

"Yeah, but people don't usually respond in kind. It's kind of nice."

He smiled and nodded. "Maybe we should talk more often. Uh…ma'am."

Internally, she questioned why he seemed a bit flustered, but she decided to deal with it later and went off to continue her tour on the cargo deck. As soon as she stepped off the elevator, she saw Garrus hard at work fixing the Mako of any scratches sustained under fire on Therum. She smirked, thinking it best to leave him to it, and turned the corner to head into the engine room. Tali seemed happy to see her, but the tone of her voice gave away that she wasn't happy otherwise. Terra could tell she was already getting close to the quarian, because knowing she was upset was upsetting her. "What's wrong, Tali?"

Tali sighed. "It's just…everything feels wrong. The _Normandy_ runs so smooth it feels like we're not even moving. And the engines are so quiet. How do you sleep at night?"

Terra shrugged. "I actually find it kind of peaceful. I take it you're used to louder?"

"Yes. Quiet like this usually means an engine has died—or worse, an air filter. And this ship seems so empty, like half the crew is missing. Back home, I couldn't wait to go on my Pilgrimage and get away from the crowds, but now…it just seems so lonely."

Terra understood. She knew what it was like to be homesick. Tali's case was more treatable than her own had been, since she still had a home to go back to, but either way, the proper treatment was a friend. She didn't think she'd be as effective as Garrus had been for her, but it was worth a shot. "If there's anything I can do to help you feel a bit more at home, just say the word."

Tali seemed to smile softly behind her helmet. "Thanks, Shepard."

Terra talked with her for a while. She lost track this time, so it must have been longer than her talk with Liara, but she didn't mind. They talked about the quarians, the geth, Tali's family—everything Terra could think of. She hadn't talked to someone this easily, besides Garrus, in a long time. Suddenly, it wasn't just a commander cheering up a squad member. She found she actually wanted to be friends with the quarian. And she liked how easy it was to do so. When she eventually remembered she was still making the rounds, she was sad to end the talk. But Tali seemed a bit more comfortable now and was clearly willing to keep talking whenever she wanted, and that was good enough for Terra. So she moved on to where Wrex was perched by the weapons lockers. He was terse and blunt at first, but she wanted to know more about him if she was going to be relying on him in combat. She kind of regretted pushing for this when the story he chose to relay was about the genophage. "I heard about that. It sounds like the turians only deployed it because they thought they had no choice."

Wrex scoffed. "Tell that to the thousands of unborn we have for every few living children."

Terra elected not to argue the matter. Even some turians resented the original decision by now, and she couldn't exactly stand in defense of what was basically a war crime. The krogan had been suffering for nearly 1500 years for mistakes made on both sides of the conflict, and it wasn't fair, but she couldn't say that to either of the involved parties without setting them off. She quickly salvaged the situation by shifting the conversation from the genophage back to Wrex himself. He still didn't like talking, but she understood why when he told her the story of how his father led the clans astray and tried to kill him. She didn't exactly know what to say to it, though. "I appreciate you telling me this, Wrex."

He shook his head. "Just let me know when you're ready to kill something, alright?"

She smirked. That she could do. Assuring him this (with a brief exchange of "Wrex." "Shepard." on her way off), she moved on to Ashley. Ashley was all business at first, but when Terra made it clear she wanted to talk about something besides work, well…

"Actually, skipper," Ashley said, "I had a concern."

Terra gave her an unsure look. "Shoot."

"I know you trust Garrus, I get it. But I'm concerned you're letting your history with him affect your decisions. This is still an Alliance ship. I'm not convinced we should be letting Wrex or Tali poke around the sensitive equipment, and I'm not buying T'Soni's story about not contacting her mom either."

OK, Terra had put up with some skepticism, but _this_ was going a bit far. "Chief, they're trying to help us. Are you sure _you're_ not the one letting history affect your views?"

Ashley shook her head. "Look, you should know getting away from family issues is hard. I'm just trying to learn from past mistakes, alright? We shouldn't count on them staying allies forever—"

"Wait, go back. What do you mean 'family issues'?"

Ashley looked at her, almost dumbfounded. "Don't tell me you don't know. My COs always find out. It's not in my file or something?"

"Your file's clean. What's going on, Ash?"

Ashley sighed. "OK. My grandfather was General Williams. 'The only human to surrender to an alien force.'"

Terra caught on now. "The commander at the Shanxi garrison." She groaned. "I didn't realize. Alright, I understand your problem, but things aren't always that cut and dry. I'm not saying all turians are like Garrus or all aliens are trustworthy, but you should know you can't consider someone as lesser or hostile just because they aren't like us."

"No, it's not like that. I just—"

"—am cynical? Yeah, I picked up on that much well enough."

Ashley rolled her eyes. "I know better than to try to argue with you about this, Commander. You're right, but not about everything."

"Well, no one can be right all the time."

"And even a broken clock is right twice a day. I know."

Terra could see this particular issue was a bit difficult. Ashley's distrust was too deep-seated to be swayed, which could potentially affect how well she worked with the non-humans on the team when they were on missions. How to show her they weren't potentially turncoat allies but _friends_? For that matter, Wrex probably wasn't warming up to Garrus either, judging by what he'd said earlier about the turians' role in his people's decline, and she definitely couldn't have that. What could she do to get them to just let their walls down for a while and see that they were past the species barrier now?

She came up with an answer so easily she fought the urge to smile mischievously in Ashley's view. "Tell you what, chief."

Ashley looked at her warily. "What?"

"Team bonding. Mess hall. Five minutes." Before Ashley could object, she stepped back to call to Garrus and Wrex in turn "And that goes for you, too, boys!" before promptly heading back up the elevator.

Wrex blinked. "What's going on?"

Garrus, however, caught enough of the spring in her step to realize she was up to something and turned to look at Ashley. "What did you just do?"

Ashley held her hands out, halfway between "I have no idea" and "How is this my fault?!"

Five minutes later, Terra had managed to drag all six of her squad-mates into the mess hall. Before any of them could so much as ask what they were doing, she had brought them all to sit down and officially declared that no one was going anywhere until they were acting like a proper team.

Tali looked between them in confusion. "So…what are we supposed to be doing?"

"I don't care!" Terra snapped, "Interact! Talk! I'll grab a deck of cards and teach you all Go Fish if I have to!"

"Oh, don't make her have to," Ashley moaned.

Liara glanced between them all, uncertain how to proceed. "Is this a standard practice for Alliance vessels?"

"No, no, this is a first." She turned to Terra. "If I apologize for the whole 'not trusting aliens' thing and never mention it again, I don't suppose you'll call this off?"

Terra scoffed. "Apologizing and meaning it are two very different things, chief."

"Wait," Garrus leaned in, "you said _what_?"

"I have a bad family history with cross-species interactions," Ashley explained, "It's nothing personal."

"Well, that's your opinion, I can understand. But you should've known she wasn't going to take it well."

"To be fair," Wrex added, "I said something, too."

Garrus looked at him suspiciously. "Which I assume was in regards to me."

"What, you're perfectly OK with me?"

"Actually, yeah, because I know Terra will make you regret it for the rest of your days if you give us any trouble."

"Who's Terra?" Liara asked.

"Me," Terra raised her hand.

Liara looked between her and Garrus in confusion. "He calls you by your first name?"

"We, uh, actually knew each other before I was the commander."

"Really?" Tali asked, "How?"

Terra hesitated, wondering how best to approach this.

"Don't see how it changes anything," Wrex shrugged, "Past is the past and all that."

He might have made his point, but Terra caught the jab beneath his words. "Now hold on a second—"

"Gotta hand it to the guy," Ashley commented, "He makes a good point."

"Yeah, but we shouldn't let the past define our future forever," Kaidan countered, Terra giving a pointed agreement.

"Not forever, no, but right now is still a bit much. I'm sorry, commander, I don't know what you thought was going to happen here."

Terra considered for a moment. She had known this wasn't going to be easy, sure, but she was hoping it wouldn't take too much for them to see. She didn't know how else to convince them without…without… She sighed. "Alright. That does it. You leave me no choice." She opened her omni-tool, inputting a command.

Garrus gave her a suspicious look. "What are you doing?"

"Dropping a bomb." Without further explanation, she hit the button.

Almost instantaneously, everyone on the ship received a message. The message relayed to the entire crew in the commander's own words what exactly her background was and how she knew Garrus before bringing him aboard. Wrex, Tali, and Liara, having only learned this now, all turned to look at Terra in varying degrees of shock. She shrugged off their glances, as well as the ones coming from all the crewmen on this deck, and began silently waiting for the consequences to come upon her. This would let everyone on the ship know why she was so keen on letting aliens onto her team and all, but she wasn't exactly confident it would endear her to them in any way or give them some kind of proof they needed to follow her example. Still, she'd gotten enough torment in the past for being the "freak raised by birds," so she was certain she could handle the worst of it. Better to own up to it now than risk rumors and xenophobia for the entire duration of the mission.

Garrus was the only one who didn't receive the message, since he already knew all of it, but he could infer from the reaction it caused just what it said. "Terra, are you sure—?"

"I am," Terra assured him, "After all…" She looked pointedly to Ashley. "…if we can't trust each other on the ship, how are we going to work together in the field?"

Ashley got the point. With a sigh, she nodded. She hadn't changed her mind, but she could set aside her issues until the mission was over. She was still a soldier, after all.

Kaidan gave Terra a supportive look, as if to tell her this was the right thing regardless of how the crew took it.

Wrex eyed her like he didn't know what to make of her, but he seemed to ease his hostility. For now, at least.

Tali simply watched her in amazement. She had no idea what to say, even if inside she felt like she was finally starting to understand.

Liara, on the other hand, did not understand at all. "You…_how_…what?"

Terra fought the urge to laugh at the asari's flustered reaction. "Don't worry, you're not the first to be rendered speechless by this news." She scoffed to herself. "Joker's gonna have a field day."

"I see," Tali spoke up, "You were adopted by aliens, so you fight to show the galaxy we're not so different."

"Something like that. But that won't matter if we can't stop Saren, and we can't stop him unless we're working together. So I'd drop the concerns for now and focus on getting along _before_ our lives depend on it."

Garrus gave her a supportive nod but still shrugged to the others to let them know that this wasn't a turian thing, she was just right.

Ashley sighed. "Fine." She turned to Liara. "So, doctor, why exactly have you not been talking to your mother?"

Liara, to her credit, realized where this was coming from but decided the best way to address it was to go along with it. "Honestly, she didn't approve of my career choice. She understood my intentions, but she was a prominent figure on Thessia and I faced high expectations because of her. I needed distance. And, no, I don't know why she joined Saren either. This isn't like her."

Ashley clearly wasn't entirely convinced, but she could tell the asari was too honest for her own good and meant what she said. "Right. Sorry."

Liara nodded. "As I told the commander, I'm used to working in isolation. I always tend to say the wrong thing to other people."

"You just need some practice," Terra assured her, "And some people you can actually talk to."

Liara smiled appreciatively before preparing to take the advice.

Terra sat back and simply listened, occasionally acting as a moderator as the conversation kicked up and took off. As she had suspected, they just needed to get to know each other a little to settle into the idea of being on a team together, and she was learning a bit more about each of them this way. They weren't officially in friendly territory just yet, but they were remarkably close. It was a start. Plus, as she could attest to herself, being under fire tended to push you over that particular edge. Pretty soon, they'd be inseparable. In which case, Saren would definitely be in trouble.

_"Commander," Joker came over the PA, "we got word Feros is under attack by geth forces. Should we move in?"_

"ASAP," Terra affirmed. She wasn't sure at first whether to quietly slip away and let the squad keep "bonding" on their own or let them know to start getting mission-ready now. Of course, Garrus noticed she was preparing to do either and they wound up doing the latter. She was impressed by how quickly they all got ready to gear up before she was even pondering who would be going groundside with her. It made her suddenly realize just how good a squad she had brought together.

Alien or not, she couldn't ask for better.


	21. Decoded

Chapter 21: Decoded

We are not driven by purpose  
We are driven by curiosity  
When mysteries find their answers  
We seek instead new questions

The mission on Feros was sheer insanity. Right from the start, Terra had known something was wrong. Well, something besides the horde of geth invading the main village. She could never have guessed just how bad it was. Clearing the geth from the ExoGeni facility was easy enough, but then they found out why Saren was after this colony. Now Terra had seen some crazy things in her time, not least the chaos on Eden Prime…but a mind-controlling plant? Yeah, that was a new one. Might seem hard to top, but she got the feeling they'd see crazier before this was over. Saving the colonists was a no-brainer, even if it wasn't easy. Seeing what was being done to them just made Terra angrier. And made her wish they were carrying a tank of herbicide, because she'd never wanted to stomp on a plant so hard in her life. Guns would be enough, she convinced herself as she led Garrus and Tali down to the plant's lair.

"Alright," Garrus said as they approached the chamber, "now we just need to find this 'Thorian' creature and figure out what it…what…it…_oh_…"

They all stopped dead in their tracks when they saw the hulking monstrosity that was the plant. It was rooted across the entire chamber, as immense as the village overhead, and it actually looked angry.

"This wasn't covered in my training manuals," Garrus remarked.

Terra looked at her pistol for a second before groaning. "We're gonna need bigger guns."

The ensuing fight against the plant and its "creepers" was long and hard, but they succeeded nonetheless. Terra was unsurprised by their victory and more surprised by how they all seemed to be taking the whole "giant, mind-controlling plant monster" thing in stride. Which she took as proof they were both silently agreeing with her that worse was likely on the way. So this mission was certainly going to be interesting.

That thought was proven true when one of the pods on the wall left in the creature's wake began to open. They all stood with their weapons ready as the contents poured out…and were revealed as an asari. When they weren't immediately attacked, Terra gestured to stand down and warily approached. The asari identified herself as Shiala, a former follower of Matriarch Benezia that Saren had used to communicate with the Thorian. Terra's immediate question, naturally, was what exactly Saren wanted from a giant sentient plant, and she got her answer: the Cipher. The Thorian had been alive during the time of the Protheans and the knowledge gained by those experiences was transferable.

"The visions from the beacon," Shiala explained, "are jumbled, unclear. They were meant for a Prothean mind. The Cipher helps to make sense of them."

Terra was already a bit uncomfortable about this, but the way forward was clear. She needed to understand the visions to track the Conduit before Saren could. She needed to take the Cipher for herself.

Of course, she was even more uncomfortable about this when Shiala explained how she would have to give it to her—"I can transfer the knowledge directly from my mind to yours as I did for Saren." This was no time to hesitate, though, so Terra went along with it. Garrus was clearly just as disconcerted about it as she was, but he didn't say anything about it, since he knew as well as she did that this had to be done. So silence filled the chamber as Shiala eased Terra into it and established the connection. Then…

…_metal screeching in flames of war…_

…_blood like rain out of flesh torn from bone…_

…_pain uncountable as devastation descended through ash…_

…_isolation across empty stars…_

…_and a ship like the one on Eden Prime carrying it all._

Terra stumbled back as her senses slowly cleared. She was still upright, but Garrus was still there to grab her. She shook him off. "I'm fine."

Garrus knew she was just keeping up appearances, though. No one else would notice it, but he could see her shaking again. "Are you sure? What was that?"

She shook her head. "The visions again. It's clearer now, but it still doesn't make any sense."

"You've been given a great gift," Shiala told her, "The collective knowledge of an entire species. It will take time for your mind to adjust."

Terra was on the fence about this one. She needed the adjustment, yes, but she wasn't convinced she wanted it. She wasn't even convinced this was a gift at all. It felt more like a burden.

She kept up her composure somehow as they made their way back to the ship. The colony seemed to be recovering already, which Terra took as a complete success and used to bolster her confidence. Once they were gathered in the COMM room for the debrief and she had the chance to sit down and breathe, though, she felt her guard lowering just enough to be noticeable.

"Commander, are you alright?" Liara asked, proving her right, "You look…pale."

"I'm fine," Terra assured them all, "…my brain just got _scrambled like an egg_…but I'm fine!"

Liara stood up. "Maybe I can help. If we combine my knowledge of the Protheans with the Cipher and I examine the vision, I might be able to find something you missed and we could figure out where it leads."

Shocking even herself, Terra jumped to her feet. "Do it. We might not have much time."

So Liara nodded and joined her own mind to Terra's as Shiala had done. After sharing the vision with her, she stumbled back in shock. "That was… Forgive me, I never imagined the visions would be so…intense. You must be remarkably strong-willed, Commander. What you've seen would have destroyed a lesser mind."

Terra would be flattered later. Right now, they had a problem. "Did you see anything?"

"No. The vision's incomplete. The beacon on Eden Prime must have been badly damaged."

And they _still_ had a problem. Terra let the team know they were going to figure it out, but she felt their chances getting dimmer with every second. When Liara made it clear that joining their minds had taken a lot out of her, Terra told her to get down to the med bay again just in case and started dismissing the rest of the squad.

"By the way, Tali," Garrus commented, "you were really impressive down there."

"Thank you," Tali nodded, "One of these days, I might even show you up."

Garrus smirked as she headed back to the drive core. Then he turned and noticed Terra was smirking at him in sheer amusement. "…what?"

"Were you just flirting with Tali?" Terra snickered.

"What?!"

"You were flirting with her!"

"No, I wasn't!"

"Save it for after the mission, buddy," she shook her head as she waved him to the door.

"I was not flirting with her!" Garrus snapped even as he turned to clear the room.

Terra kept fighting the urge to laugh as he grumbled his way out and left her to contact the Council again. She knew he was just being friendly, as was his nature, and he would be utterly clueless if anyone actually flirted with him, but that just made him an easy target. And having a bit of fun teasing him really took her mind off the stress of the mission.

Which the talk with the Council immediately brought back. She was starting to think they were going to second-guess every choice she made. Still, the asari Councilor very sagely noted how fortunate it was that the colony was recovering so well.

"Of course," the turian Councilor scoffed, "Shepard would go to any lengths to help a _human_ colony."

Terra fought the urge to glare at him. "I hope you're not insinuating I would do any less for the turians, Councilor."

She had him there.

That little personal victory brought her back to her normal self long enough to make the rounds with the crew again. Joker certainly helped that along with his typical array of sarcastic comments.

"Hey, Commander," the jovial pilot said, "next time we touch down, think maybe we could not park in a colony of mutant zombies? Just thinking out loud here."

Terra laughed. "I'll make a note of it."

"Yeah." Joker took a second to glance between her and the controls, as if considering if he should stop there or not. "…so, uh…that message you sent to the crew yesterday…"

Terra braced herself. _Here it comes._

"That all true?"

"Every word."

He looked her over for a second. "That's actually kind of cool."

Terra blinked. What? "Seriously? You don't have jokes lined up or anything?"

"Oh, I will. Just wanted to be clear up front they're actual jokes and not at your expense."

Terra smiled. She was starting to really like this pilot.

Next stop was Liara. The asari, once she had assured her she was perfectly fine and just needed some rest, also helped keep her spirits up, insisting without a shred of doubt that they were going to win this. "You're unique, Shepard. The child of two worlds. You can prove to the galaxy that humanity is more than the bully they see you as. You can prove your species' potential."

Terra nodded. "That's part of why I took the job. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's part of why I was considered."

Liara smiled. "You are inspiring…and intriguing. If anyone can do this, you can."

Terra took those words to heart as she moved on to talk to Kaidan. She was getting to enjoy her talks with all her squad-mates, but Kaidan was the most supportive (well, after Garrus, obviously). He continued to share his story and care about hearing hers. He even complimented how well she had handled the madness on Feros and gone out of her way to assist the colonists. He seemed to really admire her.

…wait a minute.

"You never let anything compromise your values," Kaidan said, "That's what I lo—appreciate about you."

Terra saw now. She found herself smirking at him. "Are you hitting on me, lieutenant?"

"What? No! No, no. No, I know you've already got someone special."

Terra looked at him in confusion. "Huh?" Who could he be talking about? She hadn't even gone on a date with someone in years. She was about to outright ask him what he meant when she saw him eying her necklace. Almost as if… "…wait, you mean _Garrus_? No! No, it's not like that, it's…the guy's practically my brother."

Kaidan looked at her. He didn't seem to accept that response. In fact, he shook his head as if her objection merely confirmed his suspicions. "Except, quite obviously, he's not."

Terra didn't object this time. Fingering her necklace rather than listening to the rest of the conversation, she finally gave some offhanded excuse about needing to check on the rest of the crew before they set out again and walked away. As she headed to the elevator, Kaidan's words rattled in her mind. She had never considered that. Did everyone else think this? She thought she had made it clear in her message just what her relationship to Garrus was. But maybe she just hadn't realized. Maybe she had been so focused on her delight that the vast majority of the crew hadn't been treating her any differently since that message went out, except for some astonished questions, that she hadn't noticed… No. No, surely it was just Kaidan misconstruing the situation. Best not to worry about it.

…right?

She didn't bother looking Garrus' way with these thoughts on her mind. The second the elevator opened, she shuffled around the corner to the engine room and started talking to Tali.

Tali seemed absolutely ecstatic to see her. "Shepard! How are you?"

Terra was happy to see this change in pace. "Good to see you smiling again, Tali. …uh…so to speak."

Tali nodded, seeming to stifle a giggle. "Yes. I took your advice and I feel like I can sleep better now. And your crew has been wonderful to me, especially Engineer Adams. Everyone else I've met on my Pilgrimage has treated me and my entire race as second-class citizens. It means a lot to be welcomed like this."

"I'm glad to hear it," Terra said, "And I'm still here if you ever need anything."

"I appreciate that, Shepard. But you don't have to worry about me. I'm ready for whatever comes next."

Terra didn't bother telling her that she already knew that. Once again, she was quickly wrapped up in a discussion that must have gone on for ten minutes, asking the quarian about what life on the flotilla was like and what her plans for the rest of her Pilgrimage would be. When she left the room to talk to Wrex, she thought it was safe to say she and Tali were genuinely getting to be good friends.

Wrex was another matter. "So. Fancy yourself a turian, do you?"

Terra sighed. She should've seen this coming. "I don't pretend to cheat biology, Wrex. I just know Garrus' family gave me a home after I lost mine and I wouldn't be a soldier without them."

Wrex seemed to look her over. "You're a strange one, Shepard. But you own it. I respect that."

Terra was surprised to hear this. "I figured a krogan would have a problem with my history."

"You're forgetting I've fought with you. I'm here to help you take down Saren and I know you can do it. I don't care if I have to get along with a turian to do it and I especially don't care if you grew up in his nest."

She didn't see a point in correcting that thought, but it was good to know he had it. Though she still cocked her head to give him a curious look. "You think I'm crazy, don't you?"

He shrugged. "Sometimes crazy is the best way to go."

She laughed. She had to agree with that one. It was a short conversation after that, but they still had one. She considered that progress. They were warming up to each other. In time, he might even warm up to Garrus as well. For now, she was content to know he was proving himself loyal to her, to some extent. After they ended their talk (with the now traditional exchange of "Wrex." "Shepard."), she turned to Ashley. When she realized Ashley was taking messages from her family, she offered to come back later, but Ashley stopped her, saying she was just about done and didn't mind talking.

"I, uh…" Ashley said, "…wanted to apologize. You were right. We need to be working together."

Terra was amazed she'd come to this conclusion so easily. "You don't mind working with aliens now?"

Ashley winced. "I'm…working on it. But I should've known better than to question them, considering your history with Vakarian. I was thinking about it while I was talking to my family. …if I lost them and a turian took me in, I'd probably end up just like you."

Terra had to concur with that. It was nice to know Ashley was living up to expectations. Maybe she really would get to be a friend rather than a subordinate.

"So," Ashley offered, "if you wanna talk…"

Or maybe she already was. Terra accepted the offer. For the next several minutes, they talked in turn about their families. It was nice getting to talk about it with someone besides Garrus, and it was nice hearing about where Ashley came from. She even found they were bonding more than she anticipated when Ashley asked what her specialty in the family of artists was. The second she said "painting and poetry," Ashley reacted. Apparently, she had grown up a poetry buff, constantly reciting to her father. This shifted the conversation almost instantaneously from their families to writing styles, the merits of prose vs. meter, some favorite poets. This ultimately came to Ashley reciting one of her favorite verses and mentioning that she read it to her father's grave every time she visited it in the hopes he would hear from the other side.

"It doesn't bother you, does it?" Ashley asked, "That I believe in God?"

"Of course not!" Terra answered, "I do, too."

Ashley was a bit surprised to hear this. "You _do_?"

"Yeah." Terra smirked to herself. "Although, after all that time I spent on Palaven, I sometimes find myself thanking the spirits." When Ashley smiled in response to that comment, proving she was genuinely winning the chief's favor, she thought it best to wait until later to mention how she and Garrus had sort of combined their faiths. She knew Ashley would understand and take it, as she had, as a sign that their peoples had more in common than they realized, but it was a topic for a later time. Right now, she was content to leave the discussion at this and feel like they had found something to bond over.

She was bonding with most of her crew now. It was wonderful.

Then she arrived at Garrus' workstation and saw him checking the Mako again. She stepped over to check on him. "This isn't even the one we used on Feros. What could possibly need repairs?"

He shrugged. "Not repairs. Optimization. In which case, _all of it_."

She shook her head. "You just can't sit still, can you?"

"And you can?"

She rolled her eyes. "I got a lot going on, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Oh, I did." He smirked at her. "I notice everything about you."

She smiled as he slid under the Mako to fiddle with the wiring. "Yeah, we're close like that." She scoffed. "No wonder Kaidan thought we were dating."

_BANG!_ "Ow!"

She winced. "You OK?"

He just slid out from under the rover to give her a look of utter shock. "He said _what_?!"

If he hadn't apparently hit his head from jumping to react to the news, she'd probably laugh at his vehemence. "He just misread it. If you didn't realize, it's a bit hard for outside parties to see us as a brother/sister-type bond. Especially since even _that_ isn't the most apt description."

He nodded, slowly recovering from his startled jump. "Right. Still, that's…" He forced a laugh, still not sure how to take this. "…crazy."

She followed along, though her laughter was clearly even more forced. "Yeah. Completely ridiculous."

So they both nodded…and stayed there in silence…and didn't say anything…

Terra quickly turned to go. "I've got work to do."

"Yeah, me, too," Garrus nodded, turning back to the Mako.

As soon as Terra got on the elevator, she felt like an idiot. She shouldn't have brought it up. There was enough going on without stressing her relationship with Garrus. She didn't know what she would do if anything happened to separate her from him. He was the most important person in her life. She quickly cut off that line of reasoning, though. They had been friends too long for something like a misunderstanding to get between them. She'd just have to make it clear to Kaidan that it wasn't like that and he should probably not mention it again. With a sigh, she headed back to her cabin. She had some time before the next lead would pop up or they'd be assigned to divert to a different mission for a few hours, so she could take some time to herself and work on her sketchbook. The one that had the drawing of a demael flower Garrus had made for her pinned to the front cover. She smiled every time she saw it, the simple image he had so carefully crafted to give to her as a parting gift, the one that always made her think of him. This was what he meant to her, and it had been more than enough for 11 years. …but as she set to work, she found her thoughts besieged by what Kaidan said.

Garrus, likewise, stayed in the cargo bay, trying to find something on the Mako to tinker with to get his mind off of what Terra had relayed to him. He had been telling himself since she walked away that it was nothing and they had agreed it was nothing and that was the end of that. Then he realized he was also still sitting on the floor fiddling mindlessly with the wires and finding nothing to distract him. He groaned as he gave up and turned to slump against the wheel. After a moment, he found himself reaching into his pocket and pulling out the page he had been keeping with him for nearly 13 years now, the drawing of the Palaven landscape Terra had so beautifully captured and so graciously allowed him to take. For so long, he had looked at this when he needed to think of her and how she mattered to him. Now he was wondering if maybe even this most fundamental piece of his life wasn't as simple as he believed.

By that night, though, they had both managed to chase it from their mind, considering it an incident they might one day laugh at. After all, they had each other and that was enough, they didn't need to worry about how other people saw their bond. They briefly met up again to call their family and tell them what was going on (and they were both right to be concerned about Castis' reaction to the news, but Terra managed to win him over, as usual) before turning in for the night with merely a few well wishes passed to the entire squad. Terra fell asleep that night convinced things were looking up for them all.

Then the nightmares came.

She had been having nightmares about the raid on and off ever since she was 16. She had finally had a handle on them when this madness began. Her semi-coma after Eden Prime had been uneasy, but now that she had the Cipher, it was a plague on her subconscious mind. Flashes of horror, red like blood, bombarded her endlessly. Any normal nightmare she could face down and wake from, but this wasn't her horror to face down. She was all but trapped in a cascade of hellish images she had no part in or control over and the broken nature of the medley didn't make it any easier to take.

Until someone helped her. "Terra! Terra, wake up!"

She gasped awake to feel familiar talons on her shoulders. She didn't even think before leaning into her turian for solace.

Garrus held her. It wasn't the first time he'd done this, but he was still stunned to find he needed to. She hadn't needed him to lend her strength to face her demons since before they left Palaven. What could have…oh. "It's the visions, isn't it?"

She hesitated to answer before realizing the hesitation was an answer in itself and nodding.

He sighed sadly. He couldn't say or do anything to help that. He hated feeling helpless. Especially when it came to his human.

For once in her life, she didn't care about the silence. She just stayed close to him, letting his warmth and familiarity replace the flickering apparitions with memories of friendship and home. Even when facing the weight of an entire race's suffering echoing in her mind, he was all she needed to find the strength to carry on.

Still, she had to pull herself together. She was a Spectre now. Spectres didn't balk in the face of fear, even this one. So she fought off the terror and straightened up. "Why'd you come by?"

He didn't let go of her just yet. "Joker got word of geth sightings around Noveria. He was trying to ask you if we should move in, but you weren't responding. I said I'd check on you."

She nodded. "Right. I'll go tell him to set the course." She stood up and started to leave the room.

He stopped her, grabbing her by the arm. "Terra, you're shaking."

She looked down, finding that her hands were indeed trembling. She clenched her fists to stop it, but she was suddenly wondering if that was even the first time or, if not, if anyone besides Garrus had noticed.

He stood to face her. "You can't keep this up, Terra."

"I'll be fine."

"No, you won't! This isn't like the raid."

"Sure, it is. Once the Cipher settles—"

"—it'll get worse again. You can keep up appearances for the crew, but not to me. I don't wanna see you fall apart, not like this."

"What am I supposed to do?! Even if there was a way to get rid of the visions, I need them to find the Conduit, and I need to find the Conduit to stop Saren."

He was more than prepared to say she didn't have to take on so much just to catch one measly traitor, but there was no point. She did have to. There was no other way, at least not that they could find in what little time they had. The real tragedy of this scenario was not what she was carrying but that she'd had no choice in the matter. First she lost her entire colony, now she was the vessel for all knowledge of the Protheans' demise. Why her? It wasn't fair.

When he didn't say anything, part of her was worried she'd upset him by biting back so hard. She knew him better than that, though. She could see it was guilt he was weighed down by now. "Garrus, I understand, but there's nothing you can do this time."

He shook his head. "Why do you think I'm so upset?"

She had no answer to this one. She sighed sadly as she resigned herself to the fact they had no solution.

They stood there in silence for a moment, neither of them prepared to let it lie but neither of them harboring an alternate path to take. They were stuck.

After coming to terms with this, she shook her head. "I am going to figure it out. I'll talk to Liara, have her help me through it again if I have to. Maybe it'll even calm down once we've made sense of it. OK?"

It wasn't, but he nodded anyway. What else could he do?

She saw he still wasn't convinced and laid her hand on his shoulder. "Thank you for trying. It means a lot to know you care."

He smiled wryly, but his eyes were mournful as he laid his hand on hers. "What would I do without you?"

For once, it wasn't a compliment. It was a legitimate question. One she didn't have an answer for any more than he did. "…probably the same thing I'd do without you."

Hearing it seemed to hurt. Chasing the thought away wasn't easy, but quelling it only took holding onto her again.

She drew closer and hugged him. "We'll be fine. We just have to stay together."

He clung to those words until he felt himself smile genuinely. "Nothing could break us."

She smiled with him. "Got that right."

When they finally brought themselves to get back to business, it was this knowledge that they held onto. As long as Shepard and Vakarian were on the same team, Saren wouldn't know what hit him.


	22. Matriarchs

Chapter 22: Matriarchs

We are not where we come from  
We are not a product of what came before  
We are who we are  
No matter who might wish we were otherwise

Everything seemed back to business as usual when they landed on Noveria. Garrus and Liara followed Terra without a word about any events in the last 24 hours. She focused on the mission until they gained entrance to the main compound, the cold her biggest concern so far. With all her personal issues off her mind, she figured it was just a matter of tracking down the geth and what they were here for and they'd be back on track with the mission one step forward.

Then they found out the geth hadn't come alone.

"Benezia?" Liara asked, shaken up the second she heard the name, "She's here?"

Terra didn't like where this was going. She could tell Garrus didn't either. When they were on their way into the compound itself, she pulled Liara aside and outright asked her "Are you OK with this? Do you need to go back to the ship?"

"No," Liara stood resilient, "No, I can do this. I have to face my mother and ask her why. No matter how much I may wish I did not need to. But if you think it would be better for me to stay behind, I understand."

Terra shook her head. "No. I trust you, Liara. Just…let me know if you change your mind."

Liara simply nodded, but it was clear she appreciated the sentiment. She was only hoping she could live up to it.

For most of the mission, she could. Her skills proved invaluable when they came up against the geth. With her weakening the geth forces and Terra and Garrus combining their skills yet again, the fights seemed to be over a lot quickly. All the way across the mountain range to Peak 15, they were ready for anything. But then they got there and things weren't that simple. Every corner they turned found strange creature scuttling through the vents. After they killed the first, Terra insisted they stop to catch their breath and get a feel for what they were dealing with. Garrus scanned it. The results threw him.

"What?" Terra asked.

"It's…" Garrus showed her the results. "It's consistent with archived data on the _rachni_."

Terra and Liara both shared his reaction. The rachni were supposed to be extinct. The krogan wiped them out when they threatened the entire galaxy. How could they be here?

Terra didn't let this mystery deter their progress. They pushed forward through the facility, eventually learning what had happened—the people behind the facility, with funding from Saren, had found and incubated a cryogenically frozen rachni egg. They'd hatched a queen. The resulting babies had flooded the facility. They took care of that issue reasonably quickly, but it merely led to why they were here. In the lowest lab, they found their target.

Benezia. "You don't know the privilege of being a mother," she sneered before even acknowledging they had entered the room, "To shape a life, turn it towards happiness or despair." She rested a hand on a glass tank containing the last of the rachni, the queen herself. "Her children were to be ours, raised to hunt and slay Saren's enemies." With a dark glare, she turned to face them. "I won't be moved to sympathy, no matter who you bring to this confrontation."

Terra fought the urge to glare straight back. "Liara's here because she wants to be."

"Is she? What have you told them about me, Liara?"

Liara was stunned. Or possibly infuriated. Or hurt? Even she didn't know. "What could I say, Mother? That you're insane? Evil? Should I explain how to kill you? What could I say?!"

Benezia all but dismissed her, turning back to Terra. "Have you faced an asari commando unit before? Few humans have."

Terra was shocked now. She had known Benezia was a traitor, but _this_? "I can't believe you'd kill your own daughter!"

"I realize now I should have been stricter with her."

And so the fight broke out. Benezia herself hid behind a biotic barrier even Liara couldn't get through, letting waves of geth and the aforementioned commandos handle the interceding Spectre and company. The Matriarch hadn't been lying, the commandos were no joke. The fight was filled with biotic blasts, loss of gravity, immobilizing fields, and the nagging sensation that something was wrong. Terra couldn't shake the thought that what Benezia was doing didn't match what little Liara had said of her. And, as usual, her instincts didn't disappoint. When the fight finally came to a close, Benezia cornered, it started with the typical "You can't stop us" monologue. But then…

"You must listen," Benezia suddenly began to plead, "I can fight his compulsions, briefly, but the indoctrination is strong."

Terra froze. Indoctrination? What was going on?

"The key is his flagship, Sovereign. The longer one is aboard, the more Saren's will seems correct. I thought I could resist, but instead, I began a willing tool, eager to serve. The process was slow enough that I was able to seal part of my mind away for such a time as this."

Liara was even more disquieted than Terra. She stayed silent for now, but she watched her mother with suspicion and dread…and hope.

"He sent me here to find the Mu Relay. It's location was lost long ago. The rachni knew where it was and the queen inherits the mother's memory. I extracted the information from this one's mind. …I was not gentle."

Now Liara was horrified. The regret behind the words made it clear that this truly was her mother speaking and all of her warnings were real. To think that her mother's mind had been invaded so deeply, that she'd been driven to do something so unspeakable to another creature, another matriarch…

Terra only needed one look at Liara to see all of this for herself. She turned back to Benezia with sympathy in her eyes and purpose in her stride. "You can make up for this. We can stop him if you help us. Where's the relay?"

Benezia pulled a data card from her pocket. "I transcribed the data to an OSD. Take it! Please!"

"Knowing the location isn't enough," Garrus cut in, "We need to know where he's going from there."

"I don't know. But you need to hurry. I already transferred the data to him before you came. You have to stop…me…I…" She stumbled back, her strength waning. "…I can't…you should…"

"No!" Liara quickly took the front, not paying any attention to Garrus and Terra's attempts to keep her back, "Mother! Don't leave! Fight him!"

Benezia answered with a look equally of sorrow and joy. "You always made me proud, Liara."

Liara withdrew, all of her mother's sorrow draining into her.

When Benezia looked at them again, it was as if she didn't even recognize them. She just struck out.

Liara reacted quickly despite her emotional turmoil, calling up a barrier to block her mother's first attack. That gave them time to fall back to cover and strategize, but it didn't matter. Most of Benezia's fire had been drained by the earlier skirmish and the force compelling her actions was weakening more than just her mind. She fell all to easily.

…and Liara's pistol took the last shot.

Terra instantly took Liara's side, ready to offer comfort when her actions sunk in. Liara wasn't even reacting, too busy watching her mother's actions.

"I can't go on," Benezia said as her blood began to fall, "You have to stop him. Please."

"Wait!" Terra quickly stepped in, "Hold on! We've got medi-gel! We can—!"

"NO! No, I am not myself. I never will be again." She seemed ready to keep arguing, but she fell back as the last of her strength began to fade.

Liara sadly knelt down beside her. "…Mother…"

Benezia took her hand. "Good night, Little Wing. I'll meet you again with the dawn." With those words, she drifted away.

Only now did Liara start to cry.

Though Terra was primed to, Garrus was the one who came over to draw her aside. He had experience comforting Terra after she lost her family and Liara's current situation wasn't so different at the core. Terra watched Liara wrestle with her grief, ready to step in when she calmed down and let her know that it wasn't her fault, that she had no choice, that it wasn't really her mother she shot… But deep down, she knew it wouldn't matter what she said. It only mattered that they were there. She just needed time. Knowing this, Terra sighed and turned her attention elsewhere. Curiously, her gaze fell on the rachni queen in the tank.

The one that then started talking to her through the body of a commando they killed five minutes ago.

That certainly got Garrus and Liara's attention, drawing the asari to set aside her grief for a moment in case she was needed. But Terra didn't think she would be.

"This one serves as our voice," the rachni spoke through the asari, "We cannot sing. Not in these low spaces. Your musics are colorless."

Garrus and Liara seemed utterly puzzled by this statement, but Terra thought she understood. She'd been raised on the belief that music, like math, was a universal language. The rachni probably used this knowledge but couldn't rely on it for communication. This information fascinated her. How much about the rachni had they not understood before the krogan drove them out to presumable extinction? "How do you normally sing?"

"We pluck the strings and those who can hear listen. But your words are strange, flat, they do not color the air. This one hears us, but she is fading. Her music is bittersweet. Beautiful."

The rachni spoke through notes that altered their visual spectra. The artist at Terra's heart longed to hear everything about this, as if she'd found a kindred spirit in the matriarch of a spidery alien race that had once nearly wiped out the galactic population. She restrained herself, though, since they were on a time limit. She limited her questions to the most basic, ending on the obvious inquiry of what this queen intended to do now.

"We stand before you," she answered, "What will you sing? Will you release us? Are we to fade away once more?"

Garrus was primed to argue that the rachni were dangerous and, even if they trusted this queen, had no place in a galaxy that feared them. But he knew Terra enough to see how she saw this matter. She admired the rachni already for what little she knew of them and she believed too strongly with all her being that all life was precious. He didn't say a word. He knew before she made her choice what it was going to be.

"I won't destroy your entire race," Terra stated as if the alternative was unthinkable, "If you promise to stay safe and not to threaten our peoples again…you can go free."

The rachni was clearly pleased, though it could not convey this through the asari. "We will find a new home. We will not forget this kindness."

So Terra unlocked the tank and the rachni queen disappeared into the snow to find her own way. She didn't care if no one else agreed with her decision. Knowing that she had saved an entire species from extinction, that the rachni were free to compose once more without threatening the galaxy yet again, was more than enough for her.

It was a good thing she thought that. The debrief following the mission went nowhere (no sense in chasing the relay until they knew which system it linked to contained their destination), but the Council call afterwards immediately descended into second-guessing her choice.

"You found rachni and _released the queen_?" the turian Councilor demanded, "How many generations until they overrun the galaxy?!"

Terra bit back the fiery urge to snap at him sarcastically and the desperate need to explain that the rachni deserved a second change, instead simply informing them "This queen is different. She understands why the other rachni needed to be destroyed. She won't let the wars happen again."

"I hope you're right. Our children's children will pay the price if you're not."

But she was. She knew it down to her bones. Maybe her sentimental side was clouding her judgment, but the fact remained that the queen had immediately kept her word and had been sincere in her gratitude. Terra's ability to read people had yet to steer her wrong. She was banking on it now. None of her crew had questioned her about it—even Wrex, remarkably—so she didn't feel misguided in discounting the Council's concerns. It was the right thing to do.

Going about her rounds with the crew took her mind off of it all. Joker continued living up to his nickname, Tali continued to be a source of friendly conversation, Wrex continued to prove stoic but respecting, and Ashley continued bonding with her over poetry. Kaidan went back to their regular talk strategy, never bringing up Garrus or accidentally "flirting" with her. Garrus himself had a long chat with her while they were both tending to their rifles, the only member of the squad to admit his opinions about the previous mission; he came to the conclusion that she had definitely done the right thing by releasing the rachni queen, regardless of the eventual consequences the Council feared, and there was nothing she could've done to save Benezia. As usual, he seemed to know just how to talk to her, but it also made her realize she needed to play that role for Liara now. She had been giving Liara space so far, but the asari wasn't used to dealing with loss like this, especially not when she took the final shot, and it was more likely she needed a friend.

So when she reached the end of her rounds, Terra steeled herself and headed for the office behind the med bay to talk to Liara.

As soon as she opened the door, Liara faced her resolutely. "If you're here to talk about Benezia, drop it."

Terra stood firm. She had been there before, she knew better. "Liara, this was a big deal. Not talking about it is going to make it worse. I don't wanna see you change."

Liara knew where this was coming from and that there was no changing her mind, so she sighed and consented. "I know there was no choice. It was not her. Not really."

Terra sat down beside her, letting the door close behind her. "She managed to break through what Saren did to her and help us. She wanted to make it right. …she loved you."

Liara nodded, looking sadly down at her feet. "I know. And I choose to remember her for how she truly was, not for what she became. My mother was kind and strong and beautiful. …and now she's gone."

Terra sighed. "Mine, too."

Liara looked at her now. She hadn't been expecting this.

Terra hadn't either, but it was the best way to approach it. "My mother was a composer. There wasn't an instrument she couldn't play. She was adventurous and brave and compassionate. You might say I took after her. …she was shot dead during the raid. My dad, too."

Liara didn't attempt to comfort her. She merely offered sympathy. Or empathy, as the case may be. "I never knew my father. I just knew my father was another asari."

Terra looked at her curiously. "Is that not common?"

"No, it's looked down upon. Our daughters learn much from integrating the genetic histories of their father species. If the father is an asari, nothing was gained. The term is 'pureblood,' but no asari would be cruel enough to say so to my face. …I always wondered if maybe my father stayed away because she was embarrassed."

"By _you_? Don't be ridiculous. You're amazing."

Liara smiled. "As are you."

Terra appreciated the compliment but answered with a sly look. "You're not about to start flirting with me, are you?"

"Oh, goddess, no! Knowing me, I'd just say something stupid again."

Terra laughed. "I don't mind, Liara. You're a good friend. I'd like to keep you that way."

Liara nodded. "Of course. I can do that." She took a moment to consider her commander. Others saw her strength and inspiration but perhaps not her charisma and grace. She was a good leader not just for her cunning and skill but because she was kind and magnetic. Others were drawn to her, loyal just for knowing her, and that was not a trait that could be taught. She truly was a born leader, whether or not the turians or her tragedies led her down the path to actually becoming one. "I hope you know how much we all look up to you, Shepard."

"I gathered. No one's mutinied yet."

"It's not just that. You have joined a crew of 100 different backgrounds under one banner and admitted to them all the nature of your service. And they all stand as one behind you. No one else could have done that much, never mind achieved all you have accomplished in merely the past week."

Terra conceded but also questioned if it had only been a week in which so much had happened. At the time, she hadn't considered she was the center of it all, she had merely known someone had to do it and she was the one in position to. Duty and sacrifice, as any turian would.

"And yet you do not concern yourself with personal matters. You put your crew first."

Yup. Just like a turian. But also the selflessness her own parents had imparted to her. She truly was a middle ground. "My crew are important to me. I couldn't do this without you."

"Yes," Liara said, "but there is more to it than that, isn't there? I know what you have with Garrus is…a _special_ connection."

"That'd be an understatement," Terra remarked.

"But you have no obligations to anyone but the Council, Shepard. If there is something between you two, there is no reason you should not act on it."

Oh, no. She thought she'd gotten past this, but Liara saw it that way, too? It's wasn't just Kaidan misreading them? Who else thought so? "It's not like that, Liara, it's just…" Terra sighed, fingering the charm on her necklace. "It's complicated. And I really thought it wasn't."

"I understand. The longer you know someone, the harder it becomes to think about them in a different way than you always have."

Terra just looked down at the charm in her hand. Liara was right, but it didn't matter. She wasn't thinking that way about _anyone_, especially Garrus. Clearly, though, there was no way to show everyone else since they all knew what he meant to her. She was just going to have to put it out of her mind. …even if that was easier said than done.

Liara kept her eye on the charm. "Did Garrus have that made that for you?"

Terra smiled. "Yeah. A long time ago."

"He must have gone to great lengths for it. He really cares about you."

"I care about him, too."

"I noticed. I also noticed that the only times you play with the charm like this are when you are unsure or nervous or concerned…or if Garrus compliments or teases you."

Terra dropped it completely at those words, but she couldn't restrain a small snicker. "He does do that a lot."

"I believe it's a sign of affection."

"I know it is. But, like I said, there's more to it than that. He's the closest thing I have to family."

"Yes, you said something like that before. And I can relate to being in a difficult position with a family member considering…"

Terra gave Liara a sympathetic look. "We'll stop Saren. He'll pay for what he did to your mother. We will end this, Liara. And we'll win."

Liara smiled and nodded. "I know we will, Shepard. I have full confidence in you."

That meant a lot to Terra. Liara said it with such conviction that it was clear she did not feel alone in this belief, their earlier topics of conversation indicating most if not all of the crew held it. Hearing it from Garrus was one thing, but hearing he wasn't the only one was another matter entirely. When she called it a night and began looking forward to what came next, it was this belief she held onto, everything Liara said.

_Everything_ Liara said. She fell asleep thinking of how her crew stood behind her, but instead of nightmares, her sleep was haunted by thoughts of what she and Garrus meant to each other.


	23. Open Heart

Chapter 23: Open Heart

We cannot escape our past  
It must be embraced  
What once was left unfinished  
Must one day be faced

Saren was onto them. Terra wasn't convinced that he wasn't laying low because he knew that. Some of the crewmen were certain he was having as much trouble finding leads on the Conduit as they were and that the geth were bringing up distractions in the meantime. Either way, the fact remained that they didn't have a trail to follow on Saren himself and they had thus begun running interference. This had led to some happy accidents, such as finding Wrex's family armor (for which he was incredibly grateful) and copying some geth data that Tali said would make a perfect Pilgrimage offering, but also to some difficulties, such as a rogue VI on Luna and a terrorist attack on Terra Nova.

The fortunate side effect of all this wandering was that the squad was having more time to bond and, amazingly, Terra wasn't having to force them to anymore. Everyone's varying degrees of sympathy for Liara gradually drew her out of her shell. Ashley started talking shop with Wrex, causing both of them to start issuing friendly challenges to everyone on missions. Kaidan and Tali both had regular conversations with their fellow squad-mates rather than saving it all for Terra's visits. Terra and Garrus' constant banter and familiarity became almost a running joke for the squad (one Kaidan and Liara were very careful not to imply for a second time was anything but friendship). They were becoming a true team, a force to be reckoned with.

As Terra was making the rounds today, almost two weeks after Noveria, she was content to believe her crew had become the example to the galaxy she wanted them to be. When they caught Saren and she could truthfully say it was because of who was behind her when she found him, it would be her greatest accomplishment, possibly one of the greatest accomplishments in human history. She'd show the galaxy what her people could do…and show humanity what her adopted people were worth.

Everything seemed normal at first. No one had any issues to report, everyone was confident they would catch up to their target soon. It was when she came to Garrus that she knew things weren't normal at all. She knew good and well he was aware of her presence—he knew her scent like she knew the sound of his voice—but he didn't acknowledge it. He seemed tense, agitated. It wasn't like him.

"Garrus?" she finally asked, drawing him to face her, "What's wrong?"

He hesitated at first. Also not like him. After a moment, he cast his gaze around the deck and pulled her aside. "Terra, I…I found him."

She looked at him in sheer amazement. "_You_ found Saren?!"

"What? No! I mean…" He sighed. "I found Saleon."

It took a second for her to remember where she'd heard that name. When it clicked, she understood why he was so upset. She was, too. "Saleon? That geneticist that was selling cloned organs?"

He nodded. "I've been putting out feelers every now and then trying to track his ship. It popped up on a scan last night. He's changed the registration under the name 'Dr. Heart'—his idea of a joke, I guess—but it looks like he's still there…and might still be running his experiments."

Hearing that resolved their course of action in her head. Without hesitation, she stood ready to follow through. "Then we need to shut him down."

He hadn't expected her to be so resolute in the matter. He knew she'd understand his need to finish this, but he was certain they wouldn't be able to divert their course for that long. "Are you sure?"

"Beyond sure. We don't have any leads right now anyway. And I promised that when the time came, if I could, I would help you. So let's go." She smiled conspiratorially. "Just you and me."

That prospect was enough. Just the two of them on a mission. Much as it had been nice to have backup on all their missions so far, she was all he needed. This settled it for him. He sent her the coordinates he'd tracked down so she could set their course. "Let's do it."

She gave Joker their destination, told him to move as fast as the ship could carry them. Then she headed down to the weapons lockers so she and Garrus could gear up together. There was something right about it. She knew she hadn't been involved in his failed case, but it had been up to her to help him recover from it. Now she was a Spectre (she snickered at the thought that he was essentially her plucky sidekick in this instance) and it was perfectly within their power and authority to redeem that failure. The ones who suffered would be avenged and the doctor's reign of terror would be brought to end. They'd see to it. After all, as they both know, nothing could stop them as long as they were in it together.

When they arrived to find the ship drifting, it was suspicious. Still, it simplified the matter of docking. The other squad members were hesitant to let Terra and Garrus go in without one of them tagging along, but they all knew it wouldn't matter. The pair stepped through the airlock in unison with their rifles already cocked and prepared for the worst. This would be a short mission.

The ship was quiet. Not a reverent silence or a lonely silence, more an eerie one, the type that didn't sit well with Terra. Garrus stayed close to her, watching every shadow in a reflection of her dread. They both wanted to fill the silence somehow but didn't want to risk giving themselves away. As they opened the door to the main deck and entered, finding no one aboard, they started to think maybe Saleon was simply the only person there and they just had to find him.

Then something leaped from behind a wall with a guttural cry and threw itself at Terra. She saw it coming fast enough to ready her gun but not fast enough to actually fire before it had her pinned down. Garrus reacted in her stead, kicking it off of her to open a window in which he could shoot it. It went down easily enough, but the gunshot drew some unwanted attention. There were more of these things around, these creeper-like monstrosities, and they didn't appreciate human and turian intruders.

"Looks like he's added to his experiments," Garrus remarked.

Terra shook her head, cocking her shotgun. "I'm really starting to hate this guy."

The creepers were practically falling from the rafters. They announced their presence before striking up close, though, so Garrus had time to line up sniper shots as long as Terra covered him. One shot from either of them felled at least one of the creatures, so it was only the numbers that proved a threat. A few well placed grenades took care of that. They pushed forward on opposing flanks when the numbers dropped, splitting the focus of the few that remained until they were easily blindsided. As they came to other end of the hall at the same time, they each gave off one last shot to the last one standing. Once they were certain it was clear, they headed on, still on guard. Still watching each other's backs. It was only when they had swept the area and come up empty that they concluded it was clear and moved on to the last room. The med bay. There was no question that was where they'd find their quarry.

The second the door opened, a salarian greeted them. "Soldiers! Thank you for saving me from those things! You have to get me out of here!"

Garrus tensed with rage just upon seeing the doctor, all the signal Terra needed. Saleon might not recognize him, but he recognized Saleon.

So Terra drew her pistol. "About that." She held it at the ready, leading Garrus to follow her example. "You're under arrest for illegal experimentation, black market dealing, and murder."

The salarian clearly hadn't seen this coming. "What? What are you talking about?!"

"Don't bother," Garrus sneered, "We know who you are, Saleon."

"No, my name is Heart! Dr. Heart!"

Terra only needed to look around the room to have all the proof she needed. The salarian knew how to hide evidence, but she could still see the blood of every Citadel species in this lab. "Nice try, but you're not getting away this time."

"Though if you want to try," Garrus shrugged, "I'd be happy to just shoot you and call it a day."

Terra froze. Momentarily, but she still did. He meant that threat. That wasn't the plan.

"Frankly, I'd harvest your organs first, but we don't have the time."

That _really_ wasn't the plan. She nearly let her aim waver as she gave Garrus a wary look out of the corner of her eye. This wasn't like him. What was he doing?

"You're crazy!" Saleon shouted, "Both of you!" He seemed prepared to keep up the pretense of the frightened doctor. Until he drew a gun and took aim.

He never so much as laid his finger on the trigger before Terra and Garrus had both shot him down. He didn't have his shields up, so only one would've been enough, but it did the job. He hit the floor dead.

"Like I said," Garrus shrugged as he holstered his gun, "Problem solved." He seemed satisfied, like this was the end of a long-held weight, like he was justified.

Terra didn't share that feeling. She stowed her pistol knowing that Saleon's victims were avenged but not feeling that the method was vindicated. Well, no, she couldn't fault the way it had gone down—he had threatened them, they'd fought back, this was a standard mission scenario. But what Garrus said…

"We should probably get out of here and back to the _Normandy_," Garrus finally suggested, "There might be word on Saren."

Terra nodded. "Yeah, let's go. This place gives me the creeps." But as they made their way off the ship, stepping over the remains of Saleon's experiments, the events of the standoff stuck with her. She had thought this would be a victorious moment for both of them. Instead, he seemed relieved and she was _worried_. When they reached the airlock and prepared to disembark, she couldn't stand it anymore and asked him. "You seemed a bit…_tense_ back there. You doing OK?"

"Of course I am," he waved off her concern, "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Probably because you threatened to harvest his organs while he was still alive."

"I thought you appreciated poetic justice."

That did it. Before he could open the airlock, she slammed down on the button to seal them in. Joker would get the message and pull away from Saleon's now empty ship while still giving them time to talk. Or, more accurately, her time to glare at him. "That's off limits, Vakarian! What's going on?!"

Garrus wasn't expecting a reaction like this. "What do you mean 'what's going on?'"

"You know exactly what I mean! That was not like you!"

"You're telling me he wouldn't deserve it?!"

"Even if he did, it's not about that! It's about you! My turian doesn't threaten to torture people just because they offend him! And he especially doesn't call it 'justice'!"

"No, _you_ don't! How would you know how I do things?! You weren't on the station with me!"

"I know because I know you! Better than anyone! And you know as well as I do that it wasn't that simple!"

"Nothing is. You said 'whatever it takes.'"

"To stop Saren. Not to turn into him!"

That was too far. The look he gave her was hurt. But she saw betrayal.

Seeing it quelled her fury in a flood of guilt. She instantly started struggling to take it back. "No, I…I'm sorry, I didn't mean that."

Her sincerity was enough for him to forgive her, but that didn't mean it hadn't happened. He sighed sadly, shaking his head. "This is why we don't fight."

There were actually a lot of reasons, but she saw now this was the biggest one. With a deep breath to set aside her regret, she started over. "Garrus, please, just talk to me. _What's going on_?"

Once he realized she was genuinely worried about him, he forced himself to face it. "I don't know. It's just…knowing what he did and that he got away with it, seeing what else he's done and not knowing how many other people suffered because of him…"

She nodded. "I get that. But you've faced that before, it's never been this bad. …are you sure it's because of what he did and not because you couldn't catch him?"

Hearing it out loud made him flinch but also made it click. She was right, as usual. Now that he saw this, it suddenly occurred to him just how far he'd almost gone.

She placed her hand on his arm. "Don't. Don't let this change you. If that's what it's going to do, you can't let it get to you. I can't see you turn into something you're not."

For once, he was leaning on her. Five minutes ago, he had felt like he'd dealt with a lingering demon, but now he felt like he'd nearly become one trying to chase it down. He didn't like it. Why did his best friend have to be such an idealist? "I won't let it happen again."

"You'd better not. I—" She stopped dead in her tracks, catching herself before the words could escape her. _I love you._ She meant them. She had for a long time. They both had and they both knew it. But they'd never said it. Saying those words gave them weight. It wasn't a phrase taken lightly by the turians. Romantic attraction was fiery and possessive while familial ties were a binding constant, a duty in themselves. The second one of them made that claim was a point of no return. She wasn't sure what made her hesitate when she already knew Garrus was a constant in her life, but she did. Then she adjusted her course accordingly. "You matter to me. I can't lose you like that."

He saw through her meaning. He quickly drew her in to comfort her, laying his head on hers in a turian sign of affection. "I'm right here."

She took as much comfort in the sound of his voice as in the words he gave or even the actual contact. "Stay that way."

They stayed close for several minutes before remembering they were supposed to be coming out of the airlock by now and hesitantly separating. The worst was behind them and they were still together. That was what was important.

"We need to do this more often," Garrus noted.

"Preferably on missions a bit less messy," Terra agreed, "Next time it's just a matter of scouting in the Mako, it'll be just you and me. Promise."

He was going to hold her to that. Then again, he already knew she always kept her promises.

Joker was obviously prepared to question what in the airlock, of all places, had taken them so long, but one look from the commander kept him quiet. Terra and Garrus both deposited their gear in their lockers without a word and immediately returned to their duties. They'd made up, but they still silently agreed they should take some time to cool down and then do something else to make up for it. So Garrus returned to fiddling with the algorithms on the Mako while Terra gave each of the other crewmen brief status checks. The only person who proceeded to engage with her afterwards was Ashley.

Terra really wished Ashley had not bothered.

"So you had a special outing with your boy, I see," Ashley smirked.

Terra groaned out loud now. "You, too?"

"Shepard, it's _everyone_."

Everyone?! The whole crew?! Why didn't someone say something?! This was out of control! "How many times do I have to explain to you people that it's not like that?!"

Ashley gave her a knowing look. "Not _yet_. You might not see it, but that doesn't mean it's not there."

"Stop trying to get poetic with me."

The gunnery chief shrugged, smirking at her commander. "Maybe you're not being poetic enough yourself. _Love is a fire that burns unseen_—"

"Cut the de Camões or I'm dropping you in Portugal."

Ashley surrendered. "Alright, skipper. I get it. I'll let you figure it out yourself."

Terra fought with the urge to snap that she had nothing to figure out. The truth was that she did. If the entire crew was seeing it that way and not saying anything, there had to be more to it than a simple misunderstanding. Combine that with her hesitation in the airlock and it was plain to see things between her and Garrus had gotten a bit more complex over the course of this mission. Or maybe it had been like that for a while and neither of them had noticed because they were already so close.

She tried to shake it off, but it had run too deep now. Even if it was as simple as she believed, this had gone too far. With a sigh, she stepped over to his station.

This time, when he caught her scent, he turned to her immediately, smiling at the sight of her. "If you're looking to spend some time together, I can leave this for later."

"Sure, but it's not just that." She braced herself and came out with it: "I think we need to talk—"

_"Commander, we got an incoming call," Joker came over the PA, "Citadel priority clearance."_

Terra sighed, not sure herself if it was from relief or disappointment. "I'll take it in the COMM room." She gave Garrus an apologetic look. "Later."

He watched her go, wondering what she had been about to say. When she came over the PA herself five minutes later to tell the crew they were on their way to Virmire to rendezvous with an STG squad, he set aside his wonderings for later.

They were back on Saren's trail.


	24. Raising Stakes

Chapter 24: Raising Stakes

Sacrifice is the greatest of virtues  
The greatest of actions  
The greatest loss

The mission on Virmire went wrong as soon as they landed. The geth presence was sizable considering how well embedded the salarian camp was. When they got there and found out the _Normandy_ was subject to the targeting of about 100 AA guns, Terra was near as surprised as she was aggravated. No, the surprise came later. It came when the salarian captain, Kirrahe, told them that this was Saren's base of operations.

And that he was manufacturing a cure for the genophage to breed an army of krogan.

Naturally, Wrex stepped in the second they started discussing destroying the base. "'Destroyed'?! I don't think so! Our people are dying. This cure could save them!" The fact he was right didn't change the decision, though. He stormed off, firing his shotgun at imaginary targets.

"I don't think we should move in with him riled up like that," Garrus observed.

"I can keep my eye on him," Ashley stated.

Terra quickly got between them. "Both of you drop it. I've got him." Before they could debate this, she went over to the distressed krogan to talk him down.

"This isn't right, Shepard," Wrex snarled, "If there's a cure for the genophage, we can't destroy it!"

"We don't have a choice, Wrex," Terra told him, "I understand why you're upset—"

"Do you?! Your precious turians are the ones who did this to us!"

She might have been upset that he was resorting to that if it wasn't clearly because he was so angry. "And it's a turian that trying to drag you to the opposite extreme. Saren is the enemy, not me."

"Really? Saren created a cure. You want to destroy it. I've been loyal to you so far—you did more for me than my own family did—but this? Help me out here, Shepard. The lines between friend and foe are getting a little blurry from where I stand." Even as he said it, his fingers were drifting to his gun.

But she stood firm. "There's nothing blurry about it. This isn't a cure, it's a weapon. You and I both know Saren is never going to give it to the krogan. He's just going to keep breeding his own puppet warriors and turn them on everyone in his way. Is that really what you want for your people?"

Wrex hesitated, as if the argument merited consideration. But it merited more than that. It was true. "No. It's not." He was still distraught, but his hand fell from his gun. "Alright, Shepard, you made your point. Just promise me one thing. When we find Saren…_I want his head_."

As he retook his position with the squad, she nodded to herself. "Duly noted."

Kirrahe had a plan by then. Strip the salarians' ship to create a massive bomb, big enough to wipe Saren's base off the map, then infiltrate the base itself to plant it. The downside was that it involved splitting up. Terra and her squad could sneak in the back to disable security at the front if the salarians stormed the front to draw attention and disable the AA towers. Terra didn't like it, but their options were limited. Which gave her mixed feelings about the captain's request to take one of her team members to support his side of the assault.

"I volunteer, commander," Kaidan eagerly stepped up almost immediately.

"Not so fast, LT," Ashley interjected, "We need you to arm the bomb. I'll go with the salarians."

Terra listened to them argue about it for a moment before noticing no one else was volunteering. Kirrahe confirmed either of them would serve his purposes, so it was just a matter of strategy. Ashley had made a good point, though, so it wasn't much of a debate. "Williams, you're with the captain."

The plan was accepted, but Ashley seemed quieter than normal as they were preparing to deploy. When Terra inquired what was wrong, she sighed. "It's just…weird going under someone else's command. I've gotten used to working with all of you."

Terra almost smiled. "Glad to hear it." She laid her hand on Ashley's shoulder. "Don't worry. We'll see you on the other side."

Ashley smiled and nodded. "Aye-aye, commander." She readied her rifle. "Let's take this traitor down."

So they all prepared to move out. With the _Normandy_ grounded and the Mako of no use to an infiltration mission, the entire squad (minus Ashley) could go with Terra while the salarians deployed. Terra and Garrus took the front as they moved out, putting their sniping skills to use for a stealthy approach until the geth responded and brought the entire team to storm in guns blazing. This tactic worked brilliantly against the geth guarding the path to the base itself. But when they got close enough that some of Saren's pet krogan were assisting the geth, it was less simple. Wrex basically became the tank of the group, storming in to draw fire and give Garrus time to line up shots, while Kaidan, Liara, and Tali used their skills to disable the geth so Terra could finish off the opposition. Three of them would have been enough to break the enemy line, but all six of them were unstoppable.

Once they made their way into and through the base, only slowing down to perform some sabotage to the base security to assist the salarians at Terra's insistence, things changed. It was clear when they reached the side area that was apparently Saren's workspace that there was more to this mission than they believed. It was only when they found the asari cowering in the room outside the elevator that they started to figure out how much.

"You think the indoctrination only affects prisoners?!" the panicked asari said, "Sooner or later, Saren will want to dissect my brain, too!"

Terra hadn't been expecting this. She could see Liara tensing in her periphery at the mention of the process that destroyed her mother. "I thought this was a breeding facility."

"Not this level. We're studying Sovereign's effect on organic minds."

This was suspicious information. Why would Saren need to study the effect he had already used on Benezia? Terra didn't need to see the others' reaction to know they thought the same thing.

The asari was so afraid that she opened the door leading to the elevator, giving them full access to Saren's private lab. "Can I go?"

Terra was all for minimizing casualties, but she also didn't trust this asari. So when she stepped aside to clear the doorway, she did so with an intimidating glare. "I'm about to blow this place apart. I suggest you start running."

"What?! But…_AAAHHH!_" The asari frantically raced out.

Garrus smirked at Terra. "You enjoyed that."

Terra shrugged smugly. "Maybe a little." As they all eyed or snickered at her, she led them to the elevator and into Saren's lab. When she found the lab was housing Prothean technology, she thought Liara was going to burst with excitement she didn't have time to address. But what had pride of place at the end of the room was what drew all their eyes.

"Is that…?" Liara asked.

Kaidan nodded. "A beacon. Like the one on Eden Prime."

Terra looked it over, suddenly realizing what had happened. Saren had found another one, one that completed the broken vision. If he had all the pieces, it was only a matter of time before he found the Conduit. They couldn't let that happen. Realizing what she needed to do, she took a deep breath to brace herself. "Everybody stand back."

Garrus immediately gave her a look of concern. "What? Why? What are you doing?"

"Just stand back!" Before anyone else could argue, she stepped forward and fiddled with the commands for the shield around the beacon to let it down. Then she let the beacon activate and do the rest.

Garrus, naturally, started rushing over to grab her, but Kaidan stopped him, silently letting him know this was supposed to happen.

Terra felt the horror more than saw it as the vision took hold. After all the nightmares and with the Cipher, it should've been unbearable. But it wasn't. She faced it down. There was nothing I could show her that she couldn't handle now. The only true pain was when it ended the vision and dropped her to the floor.

At that point, Garrus pushed Kaidan out of his way to get over and check on his human. "Terra? Are you OK?"

She nodded as he helped her up. "I'll be fine. Just a headache. Works a lot better when they don't blow up in your face."

"Commander?" Liara stepped in, "Did it…?"

Terra nodded. "Yeah, that filled in the blanks. Still doesn't make sense to me, but I guess you can."

"I can certainly try. If you want me to—"

"Wait until we're back on the ship. We've gotta get rid of this place." Once she was steady on her feet again, she got moving (with a brief pause to assure Garrus she could do so perfectly well without leaning on him) and led them back up towards the elevator. "It should be a straight shot from here to the—"

That's when the main console lit up, prompting them all to freeze and watch it cautiously.

"Why do I get the feeling something very bad is about to happen?" Tali asked.

Terra approached the console, unease gripping her. Tali wasn't the only one who thought so.

The console activated a holographic display. "**You are not Saren.**"

"What is that?" Kaidan asked, "Some kind of VI interface?"

The holographic display took form, its sinister red image adopting the shape of Saren's dreadnought. "**Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh. You touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding.**"

Liara was shuddering as the magnitude of this situation dawned on her. "I don't think this is a VI."

"**There is a realm of existence so far beyond your own you cannot even imagine it. I am beyond your comprehension. I am Sovereign.**"

Terra all but descended into a state of shock. This encounter, the visions, what she witnessed on Eden Prime all came together to tell her… "…spirits…Sovereign isn't some Reaper ship Saren found. It's an actual Reaper!"

The squad didn't take this news well.

"**'Reaper'? A superstitious title created by the Protheans to give voice to their destruction. In the end, what we are called is irrelevant. We simple are.**"

"But the Prothean extinction was 50,000 years ago!" Liara asserted, "You couldn't have been there! It's impossible!"

"**Organic life is nothing but a flicker. Your lives are measures in years and decades. You wither and die. We are eternal, the pinnacle of existence. Before us, you are nothing. Millions of years after your species have been eradicated and forgotten, we will endure. Your extinction is inevitable, for we are the end of everything.**"

Terra's alarm was slowly fading to hatred with every word. "Or _we _are the end of _you_."

"**Confidence born of ignorance. The cycle cannot be broken.**"

At that statement, Liara felt the pieces coming together in her mind. The evidence she'd so painstakingly added together, the echoes in the beacon's message… "Cycle. What cycle?"

"**The pattern has repeated itself more times than you can fathom. Organic civilizations rise, evolve, advance…and at the apex of their glory, they are extinguished. We impose order on the chaos of organic life. You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.**"

Tali was shaking in her suit as they all realized its meaning. "Keelah, they're harvesting us! They want to wipe us out!"

Terra changed her mind now. She hated Saren. She _despised_ this mechanical monstrosity with a fiery passion she hadn't yet known she was capable of. She had lost enough. She wasn't letting this galaxy she loved so much suffer. "Not happening! I only see one pesky robot that all of us could easily tear apart!"

"**My kind transcends your very understanding. We are each a nation—independent, free of all weakness. You cannot even grasp the nature of our existence. The time of our return is coming. Our numbers will darken the sky of every world. You cannot escape your doom.**"

Terra glared fiercely at the projection, grasping the railing around the console so tight that the cold metal bit into her flesh. "Who said anything about escape? We'll face you dead on. And we'll take you down so hard you'll regret ever being put together!"

"**Your words are as empty as your future. I am the vanguard of your destruction. This exchange is over!**" As soon as this message came through, a mechanical roar resounded across the landscape, fierce and threatening, loud enough to shatter every window in the lab and send the squad stumbling back.

But Terra kept her footing. She had just found a new purpose. She didn't know how, but she was going to end these Reapers before either of her people suffered—before _any_ of the galaxy fell, if it was possible—whatever it took to do so. And Sovereign was about to be the first to die.

_"Commander, do you read me?"_

She tapped her COMM as she turned to make sure everyone else was OK. "Hit me, Joker."

_"That ship, Sovereign? It's moving. It just pulled a turn that would shear any of our ships in half. It's coming your way and it's coming in hot. You gotta get out of there now!"_

"On it." Terra quickly got everyone ready to keep moving. "This console's dead. We gotta get to the breeding grounds. Come on!"

They moved faster now. The gravity of their situation was slowly descending upon them all, the weight of this mission heavier than ever before. Thankfully, they were able to project that desperation and dread into rage that tore through any geth or krogan foolish enough to stand in their way. A lot of them were that foolish, but numbers didn't help them. The squad was all but unhindered as they shut down every security measure they could find and made their way deeper. In no time at all, they had cleared their way to the breeding grounds and opened a path for the _Normandy_. Joker was quick to commend their progress and bring the ship around. Once it was in position, Kaidan got on board and set to work while the others guarded the area. When he came down, he brought a 50-kiloton bomb with him, bringing it into place and arming it.

"We're all set," Kaidan said.

"Got it," Terra acknowledged, turning on her COMM, "Everyone fall back on—"

_"Commander!" Ashley's voice cut through, frantic and surrounded by gunfire, "We're pinned down at the last tower! We've got incoming geth on all sides!"_

Terra didn't like the sound of that. If Ashley was worried about a geth assault, it must really be a problem. "We'll bring the _Normandy_ around to pick you up there."

_"Negative! It's too hot! We need backup!"_

"I've got this!" Kaidan quickly assured them, readying his gun and taking up position by the bomb, "Go help her!"

Terra nodded, leading Garrus, Wrex, Liara, and Tali across the grounds to the other path. A few geth and a couple krogan attempting to bar their route, but even with one less gun on hand, the scuffle barely slowed them down. They raced across the field to reach a walkway leading straight to the tower Ashley and the salarians were on. They moved with all the urgency of a squad with a man down.

Until, halfway across, a drop-ship flew overhead and straight to the bomb site.

_"Heads up, LT," Ashley called, "You've got incoming geth."_

_"I see them," Kaidan answered, "They're dropping in."_

Terra stopped dead in her tracks and hit her COMM. "Can you hold them off? Do you need us to double back?"

_"No, there's too many. I could barely hold out until you got here. …I'm activating the bomb."_

Terra felt her insides twist. "Alenko, what are you doing?!"

_"We're running out of time. I'm making sure this bomb goes off. No matter what."_

"We could split the team! You don't have to—!"

_"No! You need to stick together or they'll overwhelm you. Besides, it's already done. Go get Williams and get out of here!"_

_"Screw that!" Ashley retorted, "We can handle ourselves! Go back and get Alenko!"_

_No…_ It took everything Terra had not to freeze. This couldn't be happening.

Garrus stayed silent, watching as Terra's countenance fell near to despair. There was nothing they could do. The choice had to be made. He could see it in her eyes that she was dangerously close to feeling helpless. For once, there was no way he could stop it. There was no guidance he could give her, no strategy he could see that she had missed, not a single means of supporting her. All he could do was let her take command under these cruelest of circumstances and go along with it.

Terra couldn't afford to hesitate now. There already wasn't time to save them both. She couldn't risk her indecision costing the life of the one they could have saved. There wasn't even a tactical advantage to weigh her options and take the choice from her hands—the bomb was already armed and the AA tower was already disabled—it was just a matter of decision. She would just have to make her choice and live with it.

So she did.

She didn't bother hiding the sadness in her voice as she gave the order: "…Williams…tell Joker to meet us at the tower."

_"I…yes, commander, I—"_

_"It's the right choice. And you know it, Ash."_

Hearing him give his support should have helped the regret and the pain. But it only made it worse. Terra didn't bother hiding that either. "I'm so sorry, Kaidan."

_"I understand. I don't regret a thing." _With those words, he turned his COMM off. For good.

Garrus was primed to offer Terra some form of comfort.

She didn't let him. They couldn't waste one second now. So she set her grief aside for now, drew her gun, and got moving.

Her squad-mates were clearly just as shaken as she was, but none of them said a word. They just followed her down the walkway to the tower and prepared for another fight.

The fight itself was stressful—Ashley hadn't exaggerated their odds—but nothing they couldn't handle together. The geth fell, and the salarians were freed from the onslaught to join the extraction.

Then the real problem arrived.

Saren himself came without warning, the following biotic attacks sending the squad scrambling for cover. The mere sight of him, especially under the circumstances, set Terra fuming, leading her to take a few shots at him. It didn't make a difference since he was so well shielded, but it was definitely cathartic. "I applaud you, Shepard," he spoke as she ducked behind a wall and out of his line of fire, "This has been an impression diversion. My geth were utterly convinced these salarians were the real threat. But it was all for nothing. I can't let you destroy what I've accomplished here."

Terra growled to herself. What he'd accomplished was slavery. She'd seen enough of that. "I hope you know I'm going to take you down hard. But I really want to know what drew a Spectre—a defender of the galaxy—to turn traitor on his people!"

Saren shook his head. "You've seen the vision through the beacons, Shepard. You of all people should know what the Reapers are capable of."

"You're telling me a _turian_ didn't even _try_ to fight?"

"There was no point! The Protheans fought and they were utterly destroyed. Trillions dead! But what if they had bowed before the Reapers? Would the Protheans still exist? Is submission not preferable to extinction?!"

Now Terra was especially incensed. "Turians don't submit! For that matter, neither do humans—'I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees.' Your 'brilliant scheme' is just going to get us all killed faster!"

Saren waved her off. "Now you see why I never brought this before the Council. We organics are driven by emotion instead of logic. We will fight even when we know we cannot win. But if we work with the Reapers, think how many lives could be spared! Once I understood this, I joined Sovereign. Though I was aware of the…dangers."

Terra was about to start shouting and possibly shooting again when his words sunk in. _Dangers…he's not the one using Sovereign. _"…Sovereign is using _you_. That's why you've been studying the indoctrination. You're afraid it's happening to you!"

He couldn't just dismiss this claim. "No! Sovereign needs me! I've studied the effects—the more control Sovereign exerts, the less capable the subject becomes. Sovereign needs me to find the Conduit. My mind is still my own."

His words said one thing, but his actions said another. Slowly, the pieces were coming together in her mind. She had read Saren's service history. He had been an extremist and he hadn't been fond of humans, true, but he had still earned his title. He had been an honorable turian once. It hadn't made sense that he would suddenly turn on his people. But this explained it. He hadn't turned on them. He'd been forced. "No. Think about this, Saren! Benezia didn't become any less capable. Sovereign knew you were doing the experiments, so it affected the outcome to throw you off. It's turning you against your kind!"

He growled, doing his best to tune her out. "I'm doing this for my kind! Don't pretend to know better just because you claim to be turian!"

"Exactly! You're a turian! A soldier! _A Spectre_! You're sworn to defend the galaxy and you still can! If you just fight it—!"

"I _am_ defending the galaxy! Don't you see?! My way is the only way any of us will survive!" With a glower in her direction, he drew his gun. "And if you would rather doom us all to annihilation, then you must die!"

Terra shrunk back as the bullets started flying. So much for getting through to him. She looked across to the cover Garrus was using.

Garrus was clearly as stunned by the revelation as she was. He couldn't fault her for trying to talk him down once she figured it out, but now it didn't seem like it was a possibility anymore. He glanced her way, giving her a look to let her know she had done the right thing and it was worth a shot. Then he gave her a look to ask how to proceed.

She switched to her sniper rifle.

He nodded and followed suit.

So Terra popped out of cover just long enough to draw Saren's fire then shrunk back to let her shields recharge and signaled Wrex, Tali, and Liara to charge. Wrex took this signal literally and rushed in to let out all the rage he had on Saren. Tali gave him some covering fire while Liara attempted to immobilize Saren and provide some barrier support. Once Saren was worn down and focused on the others, Terra and Garrus both lined up shots. His shields were down when they fired, so they did enough damage to throw him off balance and open him up for everyone else to fire. Terra and Garrus both moved in with the others. Altogether, they stood a chance at overwhelming him.

Until he did something they weren't expecting. When Terra ducked around to blindside him, he sent out a shockwave that threw the entire squad off their feet. While they were down, he stormed over to Terra, grabbing her by the throat and holding her over the edge of the tower.

Garrus saw this. He didn't bother checking his aim, he just grabbed his gun and fired.

It bounced off Saren's shields, drawing the turian's attention. At least long enough for Terra to kick off and throw her fist into his face. It gave her enough momentum to come back from the edge and free her from his grasp, but it also gave him time to run. By the time the squad was back up enough to recover their weapons and open fire, he was out of range. Terra growled in frustration but set it aside for now. They were running out of time before the big explosion went off. So she ordered the squad to help the salarians up, went over to help Ashley, and ran for it when the _Normandy_ came around.

Two minutes later, they were flying out of the atmosphere as the bomb went off, destroying the entire facility.

And taking Kaidan with it.

The ship itself seemed sullen with loss as Virmire disappeared from view. Even during the debrief, Ashley was openly mourning, constantly saying it should've been her. Terra could only respond by saying it was _her_ fault for making the call.

Garrus had been quiet and respectful on the debriefs so far. But he couldn't stay quiet after hearing that. "Terra, there was nothing you could've done."

Terra scoffed, shaking her head. "That doesn't exactly make me feel better, Garrus."

For once, Garrus wasn't sure what would. To turians, sacrifice in the line of duty was just _expected_. But Kaidan hadn't just been a squad-mate to Terra, he'd been a friend. The losses he'd helped her through before had been different. Her lost squad-mates on Elysium she had dealt with on her own by killing those responsible, while her family had required constant support from him for months. This wasn't a middle ground, it was uncharted territory. He hadn't had uncharted territory where Terra was concerned in over a decade. He knew her. …he knew her. "_Just because you've lost someone does not mean they're gone; as long as you remember them, their spirit will live on._"

For a moment, Terra simply looked at him. Then she smiled gratefully. She still felt terrible, but hearing one of her pieces on his voice made a real difference.

He accepted the small gesture. It was a start.

"Commander?" Liara finally spoke up, "Saren got away. But the beacon—"

Terra jumped to her feet. She'd been grieving so much she had almost forgotten they had the missing pieces of the vision now. "Do it. _Hurry_."

Liara nodded, coming over to join their minds and search the vision. Once it was complete, she took a moment to make her conclusion: "It's a warning, sent out across the Prothean empire."

"Does it say where the Conduit is?" Terra asked.

"I think so. There was a planet, star mappings I recognized from my studies…_Ilos_! The Conduit is on Ilos! That's why Saren needed to find the Mu Relay!"

"Then that's where we're going."

"Forget it," Tali cut in, "It's in the Terminus Systems. Alliance ships aren't welcome there. Neither are Spectres."

"Saren could already be on his way there!" Terra responded, "We have to try!"

_"Commander?" Joker came over the PA before anyone could argue, "The Council messaged. They're mobilizing the fleet."_

That was exactly what Terra needed to hear. The Council was coming around. They might still have a chance. She turned to the squad just long enough to dismiss the meeting before rushing out to take the command post. "Get us back to the Citadel, Joker! I want the _Normandy_ at the head of that fleet!"


	25. In More Ways Than One

Chapter 25: In More Ways Than One

Love is not a circle  
Love is not a chain  
Love is a web  
Interconnected, spreading ever outward  
If the heart can touch so many  
Can it love the same person in more ways than one?

The Council hadn't come around at all. Their fleet was now acting as a blockade in case Saren attacked the Citadel, completely dismissing that the real threat was on Ilos. Terra had all but begged them to reconsider, telling them the _Normandy_ going into the Terminus Systems alone with the stealth systems active wouldn't start a war, but they shoved her aside as if all she'd done in the past month meant nothing. Then it'd been made worse when Udina turned on them, going along with the Council's plan so much that he locked down the _Normandy_ to keep it that way.

Terra genuinely was helpless now. She didn't take it well.

Garrus had to hear the whole thing from an infuriated Ashley since Terra was too upset to talk. He found his human on the crew deck, kicking and screaming and pounding the walls. He wouldn't have been surprised if she'd fished her pistol out of her locker and started shooting the lights out, but instead she slumped against the wall and buried her face between her knees. It was similar to the stance she took to cry, but her posture was rigid. She wasn't just disheartened. She was trapped.

Everyone else on the deck was keeping their distance as if she was a chained up wild animal, but he took her side as if she was a lost puppy. He wondered briefly if she really would have lashed out at whoever attempted this had it not been him. Then he abandoned his wonderings and sat down beside her. He didn't say anything. He just stayed close. He knew her well enough to know that would be all she needed.

It was at first. Slowly, she untangled herself, drawing strength from his presence. He stood by her even now. That meant a lot. "They're just going to keep us here while he gives Sovereign exactly what it needs. …they're just going to let Kaidan have died for _nothing_."

He slowly drew closer, one hand taking hold of hers as the other wrapped around her.

She sighed, leaning into him. "I don't know what to do. I can't just sit here, not knowing what's at stake."

He shook his head. "Neither can I."

Hearing his voice soothed her emotional torrent, but it was still there. This kind of desperation couldn't be quelled.

He saw this as well as she did. When the silence hanging in the air between them grew thick with that desperation, he resolved to do something about it. "Maybe we should take your mind off it."

She scoffed. "And how exactly are we supposed to do that?"

He thought it over briefly. "Wasn't there something you wanted to talk about? Before Virmire?"

She felt her heart skip when he said that. So much had happened that she had forgotten. Suddenly remembering what she had needed to say, she felt the pressure rise in a way it didn't for anything else. She drew away from him, practically folding into herself as she wrestled with whether or not to go through with this.

It shouldn't be this hard. She should just know how she felt, regardless of what everyone else thought. After all, this was _Garrus_ she was thinking about. The same Garrus who brought her out of the wreckage of Mindoir, who gave her a new home, who taught her to shoot.

…the same Garrus who stood by her through everything, who knew her inside out, whose eyes lit up when he saw her, whose touch calmed her wildest furies, whose voice made her smile in the darkest of times. The same Garrus she loved.

…

Loved.

Oh, spirits, they were _right_! How had she been so blind for so long?!

Naturally, he noticed her mind racing, her muscles tightening, her eyes widening, her pulse leaping. He didn't know what was making her react this way, but he knew she needed him. "Terra, whatever it is, you can tell me. We're family."

Those words determined for her what she needed to do. "Yeah, we are. But it's not that simple anymore."

He looked at her in confusion. "What do you mean?"

She looked at him with rising certainty. "Solana may be my sister…but, Garrus, you haven't been my brother in a long time."

The words would have hurt if not for the way she said them. He still wasn't sure what she meant, but he knew she meant things had changed between them. He didn't mind change for the most part, but he didn't like the thought of their relationship being one. "Terra, what—"

She took his hand again. They had done this a million times, but there was something about this time that was different to them both. His confused glance turned to watch her, their sapphire eyes locking on each other. For a moment, they stayed there, her fingers wrapped around his talons as they simply looked at each other. Then she slowly moved closer. And she laid her head on his.

He froze. They had done this a million times, too, but he _knew_ what was different about this one. They had never done it out of nowhere like this, for one thing, but only ever in comfort or contentment. Never just out of affection. Because that's what this was. The angle, the depth of the contact, how she was lingering and nuzzling—these were subtle shifts in the act itself that made it a show not of familial bonds or friendly support but of…something else. Surely she wasn't implying…? No, she couldn't be. This was _Terra_.

Terra. The Terra who made him see the color in everything, who inspired and encouraged him at every turn, whose laugh made his heart skip. The Terra he was hollow without. The more he tried to convince himself he was misreading the situation, even though he hadn't misread her in years, the more he failed to chase the thought away. The more he leaned in closer to her.

Neither of them pulled away. That much solidified in both their minds that there really was more to this than they had believed. How long ago had this happened? How long had they been looking at each other as more than just best friends and not seeing what was so obvious to everyone else around them? They just hadn't thought about it. They had been thinking about too much else. As they closed the distance between them now, they didn't think at all. So neither of them tried to stop it when she turned to k—

_"Commander, we got a message from Captain Anderson."_

Terra shocked back at the sound of the helmsman's voice on the PA. She had actually forgotten about everything else that was going on. A remarkable feat in itself. If Garrus had that effect on her that easily, maybe… She shook it off. Business first. "What did he say, Joker?"

_"Not much. He just said to tell you to meet him at Flux."_

Terra nodded. "Right. On my way."

Garrus watched her get back on her feet. He stayed there, not moving, the events of the past…was it really only two minutes?…slowly sinking in. They…they had…had they really almost…?

Terra finally turned to her stunned turian. "Are you coming?"

When he realized she was talking to him, he forced himself to shake it off. He'd ask her later. She needed him. …apparently, she _always_ did. "Yeah. Of course."

They didn't talk as they left the ship with Liara in tow. Terra wondered if Liara noticed the tension between them as easily as she had noticed their actual attraction, but the asari never let on that she did. They just all three stayed quiet as they made their way through the Wards to the club where Anderson was waiting.

"Shepard," Anderson greeted her as they all sat down with him, "I'm sorry about what happened. I tried to call ahead to warn you, but I couldn't get through."

Terra shook her head. "I hope you didn't just call me down here to feel sorry for me."

He smirked. "Of course not. You and I both know we need to take action."

He had her full attention now. "What do you mean?"

"I've been keeping up with your reports, I know what you found out. And if you can't get to Ilos to stop Saren, we'll all pay the price—humans, turians, everybody! We can't let that happen."

"I appreciate the support, sir, but there's only one ship that can get us into the Terminus Systems undetected and she's grounded."

"I know. …so we'll just have to un-ground her."

Terra was utterly stunned by this. "What…are you seriously suggesting we _steal the _Normandy_?!_"

"Unless you've got a better idea."

"We can't just…the crew's not just gonna go along with this!"

Garrus smirked. "I think you're underestimating how much they look up to you."

She was prepared to argue, but he had a point.

"And even if they don't…I'm with you."

Liara smiled and nodded. "And me."

Terra smiled back. It was nice to know Garrus wasn't the only one who believed in her. And if Liara did, there was no doubt in her mind that Tali, Wrex, and Ashley did, too. Which meant Joker and likely Dr. Chakwas would be on her side. No, Garrus was right. They could do this. So she turned to Anderson with pure determination. "How are we doing this?"

"I can sneak into the docking command center," Anderson answered, "and disable the lockdown."

"No good," Garrus shook his head, "Area's patrolled by armed guards 24/7."

"I take it there's an option B, though," Terra said.

Anderson thought it over. "Udina issued the lockdown command. If I get into his office, I can override the order from his terminal."

"He's not just going to sit by while you use his computer."

"With any luck, he won't be there. If he is…I'll just have to think of something."

"The ambassador won't forgive this, captain," Liara said, "You'll be charged with treason, a capital offense."

"Our alternative is to do nothing and let the Reapers blindside us. I'm willing to take the risk."

Terra didn't like this. Anderson had been her mentor, all but a third father figure to her, and now he was going to have to take the fall to ensure their mission was a success. And she was going to have to ask him to. But he was right, they didn't have a choice. So she forced herself to accept this and nodded. "It's a plan. We need to get moving ASAP."

Anderson agreed. "You get to the _Normandy_. I'll get to Udina's office. …he made this personal."

They did their best to remain discreet as they made their way back to the ship. They managed to get back on board without raising any alarms and promptly took up position for what was sure to be a thrilling chase very shortly. Terra quickly explained everything to Joker while Garrus and Liara briefly informed the rest of the crew, then she began to stand sentry over the pilot controls, watching in anticipation for the moment they would unlock. …any…second…

Now.

"This is it!" she announced, "Get us out of here, Joker! _Fast_!"

The pilot nodded with a mischievous smirk and pulled out of the docks, racing away from the Citadel and straight to the relay to begin jumping to Ilos.

The crew was shocked they were stealing the _Normandy_ but all agreed it was necessary. Pressly seemed especially excited about it, to Terra's amusement. Wrex, on the other hand, was amused just by the act itself. Ashley was a soldier through and through, so she didn't like that doing her duty was now only possible through an act of treason, but she never once made an objection.

Tali was actually the one most uneasy with it, since ship thievery was the worst offense possible in quarian culture. Terra had to spend five minutes telling her that she understood the concern and wouldn't have done it if they'd had any other options before Tali started to accept it. "You're right, Shepard," she finally said, "On the highly unlikely chance that you're wrong, we'll pay for it. But if you're right and we did nothing, we'd regret it a whole lot more."

Terra nodded. "We would. Don't worry, Tali. This'll be over soon. One way or another."

Tali nodded in agreement. "It will. And I'm glad I was here to do it with you, Shepard."

When Terra came around to Liara, though, she took the time to talk. Liara seemed to have finally settled into her place on the ship, and Terra found she enjoyed talking to her. It was a nice escape from the frantic feeling escalating through the rest of the ship as they gradually approached the Mu Relay.

"I've been thinking about Saren," Liara admitted, "I actually feel kind of sorry for him now."

Terra was relieved to know she wasn't the only one who felt that way but also truly regretful to think of what had happened to the turian Spectre. "He's a slave to that thing and he doesn't even know it."

"It does beg the question what drew him to Sovereign in the first place. Did he truly believe he could stop the invasion somehow or was he merely driven by a lust for power and glory?"

"I'd like to believe it's the first one, but I guess we'll never know now."

Liara watched the commander's reaction. It was clear she was mournful of any living creature succumbing to such a fate as indoctrination, but it was also clear she took even greater offense to a member of her beloved adopted people, especially a fellow Spectre, falling to it. She had meant every word she'd given to Saren on Virmire, and he had dismissed them all because he was already too far gone. He likely had been for a long time. The commander had made it her mission when she took on the title of Spectre to save as many as she possibly could. But Saren was one that likely couldn't be saved. "Perhaps we shouldn't be dwelling on this. It will only make things harder when it's time to end it."

"No, actually, it makes it a lot easier." Terra stood resolute as she stated what had to be done: "If Saren won't listen to reason, we have to take him down. And if he can't be stopped…he has to pay for what he's done."

Liara almost smiled. All these concerns and Terra was still willing to stop at nothing. Admirable. No wonder she had won the favor of a turian family so easily. "Understood, commander. I'll try my best not to let you down."

Terra did smile. "Let me down, Liara? You could never."

With about an hour left before they reached their destination, Terra went to her cabin to prepare. She checked her gear five different times before she determined she was only working herself up and set it aside. Then she instead retrieved her sketchbook and set to work on a new page. As her hand drifted over the slowly manifesting image, her mind drifted off her anxieties. It seemed strange that her drawing was actually more effective at taking her mind off things than Garrus was, but she quickly found out why when she stopped and checked her work. Without even thinking about what she was creating, she had perfectly drawn a pair of hands intimately intertwined. …a human's and a turian's.

Maybe she just plain couldn't take this off her mind. Then again, if the issue at the forefront of her mind was worries over personal matters rather than dread over what awaited them all on Ilos, maybe it was a good thing.

While she processed this knowledge, the door opened and Garrus stepped in. "We're about a half hour out from the Mu Relay."

Terra nodded, already rationing that time—Ilos was about five minutes from the relay, they'd need ten minutes to gear up and deploy, etc.

Garrus noticed, but he also knew he wouldn't be much good to her on the mission if he was distracted. And he was _very _distracted right now. "Does that give us enough time to talk?"

One side of her was certain, if only because she always made time for him. The other side was preoccupied with what she knew he wanted to talk about and hesitated. Either way, she knew they had to address this sooner rather than later and agreed.

He cautiously moved closer, no longer sure where exactly he stood. "What was that back there?"

She sighed. She had been hoping she wouldn't have to explain to him. She'd been hoping this would be as easy as everything else with him had always been. "We've been together a lot more in the past month than we have been since we left Palaven. That and what Kaidan said…it made me think about us differently."

"We don't have to change just because he didn't understand—"

"It wasn't just him, Garrus, it was _everyone_. The whole crew saw it. One, two, maybe even three, I could dismiss as a misinterpretation, but all of them…makes me think _we're _the ones who were blind."

He wanted to keep saying it wasn't true, but the evidence spoke for itself. Also, the more he thought about it, the less he wanted to deny it. He already knew he was at his best when he was with her, that he'd do anything for her. Was this really so different?

She had the same thought. Setting her sketchbook aside, she closed the distance between them. She wanted to say something, but in a rare turn of events for her, words failed her. How do you tell the person you love most in the whole universe that you also _love_ them?

He didn't know the answer any more than she did. It was his first time looking at her this way. But now that he was looking at her this way, he found it hard to stop. "I…" Without even thinking, he reached up to gently run his talons through her hair. "…I don't know what to do now."

She waited a moment, amazed at how much pleasure she derived from this feeling. Then she reluctantly cut it off by clasping his hand in hers. "I don't either. But I think I'm willing to try."

He still hesitated, the reason for the hesitation suddenly the only thing that could impede his thoughts being solely of her. "I just don't want to risk ruining what we already have."

She smirked. "I thought the same thing, but come on. There's nothing you could do that would make me not want to be with you anymore. And I know you feel the same way."

He did. But this was still a huge change coming very suddenly. Ilos was nothing. This was the hard part.

Seeing this, she sighed, lowering their clasped hands. "If you need some time to think about it, it's OK. I'm not going anywhere."

He appreciated the offer, but it was only when she gave it that his thoughts diverged into two even worse directions. On the one hand, he shouldn't need time, he should _know_, because it was _Terra_ and she couldn't possibly make him uncomfortable or ask something he couldn't give her and he cared about her too much not to give her an answer even if he wasn't sure yet but _should be_. But on the other hand…she only said she wasn't going anywhere. This mission was high risk. They'd already taken a lot of those and gotten away with it, but what if Saren and Sovereign proved too much for them? What if things went south and he lost her and this was where they left it? He couldn't do that to her. It would be bad enough losing her. He wasn't sure he could survive it as it was. Imagine if she was right that there was more to it than they realized. How could he lose her then?

"Uh, ow."

He quickly set aside his struggling thoughts and noticed that they'd tightened his talons around her hand. Any longer and he might hurt her. That was enough to send him frantically jumping back. "Sorry! I'm sorry. I didn't…that wasn't…" He groaned. He couldn't even _talk _to her now? What was wrong with him?! "…I can't do this."

It was a good thing she knew him so well. If she couldn't see that he was distressed over the consideration rather than over the offer itself, he might've broken her heart with those four simple words. Since she did know, however, she was able to step back. "Fine! Then don't think about it at all! Just focus on what you _want_."

What he wanted? …he wanted to be with her. He didn't care how. But maybe that was the secret. The way turians bonded to the people they cared for, the layers of their emotions and the intensity of their needs, their protective nature and territoriality—love was even more blinding for them than it was for humans. Terra saw things both ways. Garrus had followed her there. Which meant that what she felt for him had to be what he felt for her. So if she really wanted this…if she meant it…

He didn't know what to say. Telling her he loved her wasn't going to be any easier than her saying so to him, but telling her he _wanted_ her was something else entirely. That wasn't something you just _said_, even to your best friend.

…

Perhaps _especially_ to your best friend.

She quickly noticed he'd fallen silent, which was normally unlike him. She could tell he was starting to make sense of it, but it was still a lot to take in. It was probably best to let this simmer while they finished the mission. Going into a gunfight together was as good as sleeping on it. "We should probably start gearing up."

He didn't respond as readily as normal, nodding almost mindlessly. When she turned to gather up her arms and armor, he brought himself to leave the room. As he turned to go, his eyes fell on the sketchbook she had left on her bed, still open to the drawing she had just completed when he'd walked in. A symbol of unity, friendship, and loyalty…but just as much of intimacy, fidelity, and _love_. She wasn't taking this matter lightly. While he made his way down to the lockers to get ready for whatever awaited them on Ilos, his thoughts lingered on Terra Shepard, on how he felt about her.

On how much they were meant to be.


	26. Sovereign

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Hope you enjoy the last of the ME1 chapters. I think you'll like what happens. :)

Chapter 26: Sovereign

In every life, there is a moment  
A moment for which we fight  
A moment all else seems to lead up to  
A zenith  
An apex  
But for some, there is more than one

Terra already believed it, but now she was calling it official: Joker was the best pilot in the entire galaxy. No one else would even think it was possible to drop the Mako in such a tight LZ, never mind pull it off, but they landed on Ilos without a hitch. Well, besides the hitch where Saren sealed the doors behind him the second he got there because he did, in fact, get there first and clearly saw them coming just moments later. Still, that was easily solved. This planet wasn't easily navigable and there were geth at literally every turn, but she and Garrus and Wrex tore through the opposition as readily as ever and still managed to find the door controls. It was the inside of the facility that gave them pause. First momentarily, the sight of the pods on the walls and the cold, desperate nature of the place giving a sense of unease that something was definitely wrong with this place.

Then literally when a barrier blocked their path through.

"Geth!" Wrex instantly declared, "It's a trap!"

But there was nothing on the radar. Terra knew this was different. "I don't think Saren did this one." She quickly disembarked the Mako and scanned the area, finding an elevator on their right that was already open for them. Suspicious. Either Wrex was right and it was a trap or Saren had somehow overlooked this. If it was the former, the geth didn't know who they were dealing with. If it was the latter, something was going on, because Saren, even indoctrinated, wasn't that careless. Either way, they had to go that way to get rid of the barrier, so she led them down.

At the bottom, they found the last thing any of them expected: a fractured but still functioning Prothean VI. The program calling itself Vigil told them the story of how the Protheans who retreated here had been attempting to cheat the Reapers' attempts to drive them to extinction, how they had cryogenically frozen themselves until the Reapers retreated to dark space only for most of the pods to fail, how the scientists had devised a plan to ensure the next cycle didn't suffer as theirs had.

"The Citadel is the seat of your government, as it was with ours," Vigil explained, "But the Citadel is a trap. The station is actually an enormous mass relay that links to the Reapers' location in dark space. When activated, the Reapers will pour through."

Terra chilled with dread as she realized what this meant. "And wipe out the Council, the Citadel fleet, and a billion organic lives in a single surprise attack!" As Vigil continued to explain, the possibility shook her. The Citadel population exterminated, the Widow Relay right there to allow easy passage to the rest of the galaxy, everyone in it completely unaware…it would be a galaxy-wide massacre, a bloodbath a million times worse than Mindoir.

They had to stop this.

Vigil told them how the few Protheans who survived had affected what happened now. They had determined the keepers were the only ones who could activate the Citadel's relay function and had trained them to ignore it. Then they had managed to recreate the relay function and build the Conduit.

The Conduit was a back door onto the Citadel.

Now it all made sense. When the keepers had ignored the signal, Sovereign had been sent to investigate and then found and used Saren to figure out what happened. This led to the first beacon they found giving Saren the vision, the geth's recruitment, and Eden Prime. If Saren made it to the Conduit, the fate the Protheans had attempted to free them of would come to pass anyway.

But Vigil had an escape route for them. A program that would give them total control of the station if they could get to the master control unit, which was where Saren was headed now.

Terra quickly took it. "Saren's already got enough of a head-start. Let's go."

"The one you call Saren has not yet reached the Conduit," Vigil assured them, "But you must hurry."

_Oh, I intend to._ Terra led them back up the elevator and into the Mako. The barrier was gone now, so their path to the Conduit was clear. Give or take a few geth. They raced through as fast as the Mako could take them, Garrus silently grumbling about how he couldn't arrange for any kind of booster for the engines, and refused to stop for anything. When they finally came to the end, they caught sight of the Conduit—a miniature relay in full working order that could leap them clear across the galaxy.

And was currently surrounded by geth Colossi.

Terra took a deep breath, briefly stopping to signal the _Normandy_ what was about to happen. "Brace yourselves."

"What?" Garrus spoke up, "Why? What are you doing?"

"Flooring it." So she pushed them back into full speed and started racing straight through the geth firing line, zigzagging the rover harder than they had ever zigzagged before until they had reached the Conduit and run full-speed into its mass effect field.

They were thrown directly onto the Presidium itself and sent tumbling to the foot of the Citadel Tower. It was a struggle just to get out of the rover after it landed wheels-up like that, but they managed.

"Everyone alright?" Terra asked. After both her teammates answered to the affirmative, she winced at the wreckage of the Mako. "I don't think you can fix this one, Garrus."

He groaned, shaking his head. "Yeah, well, we got bigger problems."

They did. They only needed to look up to see that. The Citadel had closed itself _with Sovereign latched onto the Citadel Tower_ and the geth were presumably bombarding the fleet outside. Saren would already be approaching the master control unit. Any second now, he was going to activate the relay. They had to move fast. The only way up was through the elevator, so Terra led them on. It got them halfway before it stopped. Saren had hit the lockdown. Terra retaliated by signaling the team to get their helmets on then shooting out the glass so they could climb up the side of the tower with mag-boots. And yet, somehow, there were geth here, too. And they'd brought krogan with them.

These geth were determined not to make it easy on them. It was a hard fight, but that merely made it well won when they managed to push through. They had already developed team tactics perfectly suited for battles like this along the course of their previous missions—Wrex charged in to unbalance the opposition and draw fire while Garrus wore them down with tech attacks and sniper shots so Terra could finish them all off. When they finally made it to a hatch that let them drop into the Council chambers and made short work of what few geth were left to stand in their way, they all knew they were approaching the end. So they ran for the main platform ready for a final showdown.

They were met with an empty room. Until Saren came up from below to toss a grenade in their direction, forcing them to duck back behind cover while he glowered down at them yet again. "I was afraid you wouldn't make it in time, Shepard."

"In time for what?!" Terra snapped back, keeping her gun at the ready.

"The final confrontation. I know you've been looking forward to it as much as I have. But you've already lost. You know that, don't you? In a few minutes, Sovereign will have full control of Citadel systems. The relay will open. The Reapers will return."

Terra sneered at him from behind her cover, cocking her pistol. "Not if I have anything to say about it."

"But you don't. You may have survived our encounter on Virmire, but I've changed since then. Sovereign has…_upgraded_ me."

She instantly traded the sneering for alarm. "You let Sovereign implant you?! Are you insane?!"

Once again, he dismissed her words. "I suppose I should thank you, Shepard. After Virmire, I couldn't stop thinking about what you said, about Sovereign manipulating me. I was implanted to strengthen my resolve. Now my doubts are gone. I understand why the Reapers need organics. Join us, and Sovereign will find a place for you, too."

She stopped trying make sense of her warring reactions. She wasn't either disgusted at his actions or apprehensive for his sake. She was both. "You've only proved me right. You're nothing but a tool for them. I won't let that happen to the rest of us!"

"Then you will die. You and your companions. Everyone you know and love. Everyone you've ever met! Don't you understand?! You will all die! The Reapers can't be stopped!"

He was saying exactly what he knew he needed to say to convince her. She couldn't bear to think of anything happening to her crew or to Palaven, not after what happened on Mindoir. But when she looked at Garrus across the way, her doubts turned on their head. She wasn't letting anything happen to him. And as long as it was Shepard and Vakarian standing together, they could stop anything.

It was just a matter of getting Saren to see that, too. "Listen to me. We can still end this. We have a way to keep Sovereign from taking control of the station. Step aside, and the invasion will never happen!"

"We can't stop it!" Saren snapped back, "Not forever! You saw the visions! You saw what happened to the Protheans! There's nothing we can do—!"

"Yes, there is! Listen to me! Some part of you still knows who you are, knows this is wrong! You're a turian, you're a Spectre, and you'll never back down! You can fight this! You just need to try!"

Saren hesitated. No biting retort, no indoctrinated rhetoric, just a _hesitation_. That alone was proof enough that he still had some control. "…maybe…maybe you're right…maybe there is still a chance for…for—AAAHHH!" Just as suddenly as he'd regained his senses, a surge of pain ran through him. "…the implants. Sovereign is too strong. I'm sorry…it's too late for me."

"No!" Terra asserted, not even thinking as she jumped to her feet and Garrus immediately started trying to get her back into cover, "It's never too late! You can still redeem yourself!"

Inspiring as ever, be it to a teammate or an opponent. Saren used those words to find the strength to push through…and draw his gun. "Goodbye, Shepard. Thank you." So he turned to fire on himself.

Terra reacted without thought, wrestling with the urge to rush to intervene. It didn't matter. The shot rang through the chamber in a burst of azure blood and the turian's body fell through the glass below and into the glade. Just like Benezia, he had known he was past saving and taken matters into his own hands.

Garrus stepped up, Wrex just behind him. He could see his human thrown by what she had incited. He could tell it hadn't been her intention, but it had been the only way it could've gone. "He had to, Terra."

At the sound of his voice, she shook herself out of it. He was right. It was done, it was for the best, and the Citadel was still under siege. They needed to move. So she put her gun away and walked up to the control unit, using Vigil's file to take over. "I'm blocking out the relay functions and reestablishing communications."

_"…copy?" a voice came through the newly-opened channel, "This is the Destiny Ascension. We're taking fire. The Council is on board. Repeat: the Council is on board!"_

Terra tensed with panic when she heard this. If the Council died, the galaxy wouldn't recover easily. She might not like them that much, but she knew enough about their civilization to know that losing their leaders would have a ripple effect ripe for exploitation by the Reapers even if they did manage to drive Sovereign out. They couldn't let that happen.

_"—this is _SSV Normandy_," a new, more familiar voice came down the line, "Please tell me that's you, commander."_

Terra smiled to hear that voice. "We read you, Joker."

_"Good. Knew you'd make it. We got your message, I'm sitting in the Andura sector with the entire Acturus fleet. Say the word and we'll move in to save the Ascension."_

"You're gonna throw away reinforcements to save those pyjaks?!" Wrex interjected.

Terra gave him a sharp look. "We came here to keep the Reapers from dividing and conquering, and that's exactly what we're going to do." She turned back to the COMM without giving the krogan a chance to debate the matter further. "Give them the signal, Joker. Don't let the geth have that ship."

Wrex shook his head. "I hope they appreciate this."

Terra simply input the command to open the station and let the fleet punch through the geth line. She watched through the windows as the nebula slowly reappeared, dotted with ships firing in all directions, and, one by one, Alliance ships jumped in to join the fray, all circled around the Destiny Ascension to clear its path. She counted mournfully every ship that fell to geth fire before the Council was free and the offensive could be focused on Sovereign itself, then she rejoiced the success and shifted her focus to finding another way to help the fleet.

In only a second, her eyes cast downwards to Saren's body. Even now, her fists clenched at the sight of it. Hollowed out of the turian Spectre, all that remained was the shell Sovereign had subsumed.

Garrus noticed her intense reaction. He wasn't sure how to respond to it. "Terra?"

She didn't even look at him. "Make sure he's dead."

He withheld a reaction of his own. She said it plainly, as if it was just a part of the mission, as if it didn't even make a difference. He thought it best not to suggest otherwise. So he nodded to Wrex and the two jumped down through the broken glass and into the glade below. The krogan unceremoniously stepped forward, drew his gun, and fired into the turian's skull, doing nothing but throwing said skull back. Garrus took this as all the proof they needed and told Terra through his COMM "He's dead."

As they turned to leave the chamber, there was a moment where they felt the relief that it was over, that their foe was defeated and only Sovereign itself remained. But then the chamber seemed to shake and rattle. When they turned to investigate, a surge of energy went off, throwing Wrex and Garrus back into the walls and cracking the platform to send Terra tumbling down after them. They all turned to find the cause and saw that Saren's body was transforming. With the turian dead, the implants took control, gradually changing the corpse into a synthetic skeleton with glowing red eyes fixed on them. The second it was fully activated, it lunged to attack.

Terra jumped into action, drawing her shotgun and opening fire.

It dodged all too easily, arming its own weapons just as Garrus and Wrex were preparing to join the struggle. "**I am Sovereign,**" it spoke, "**and this station is mine!**"

"Not happening, cyber-squid," Terra growled under her breath before signaling the others to take cover.

They waited out the initial attacks, leaping out of cover the second they had an opening to fire back. Its superior mobility played against them, constantly jumping out of the way a split second before their shots could connect, but they quickly figured out ways around that. With Wrex's biotics and Garrus' hacking skills, they managed to disable it for brief periods to wear it down. Simply disabling its shields took what felt like hours, and Terra's morale was not helped when she had to duck down to catch her breath and saw through the windows overhead that Sovereign's actual body had enough firepower to tear through an Alliance ship in one shot. But that merely reinforced in her mind that they had to end this now. She wouldn't let them fail.

She cut loose then. Once her shields were recharged enough to jump back into it, she signaled Wrex and Garrus to fall back and then fired every grenade she had. There was nowhere for the Saren-puppet to jump that would get it out of range of all of them except directly into their line of fire, so it took the brunt of the first blast and was thrown into the edge of the others. Then, before it could recover, Wrex fired into its head and charged in to stomp on it. He managed to break one of its legs in half, but it retaliated promptly, firing at him point-blank to sending him tumbling back into the wall yet again. He was regenerating quickly, but he was still immobilized until he did, so it turned its focus to Garrus.

Garrus was able to sabotage its gun long enough to get a few shots in, but it responded to his attempts to overload it by leaping straight at him. The leap was uneven with a broken leg, so Garrus was able to duck under its claws and get a shot in, but then bounced off the wall to double back and drop on him. His shields took the worst of the damage, but he was still knocked prone by the force and his shields collapsed in response. Before he could recover enough to counterattack, it readied an attack of its own.

And Terra jumped in, fueled by rage and instinct, to kick it off of her turian and open fire. She sent a shotgun round into its face and one into its arm. When it tried to leap out again, it stumbled, the damage to its arm robbing it of some mobility. She took this chance to take a page from Wrex's book and go berserk, firing nonstop into its body until sparks flew, metal crunched, wires broke, and…the trigger clicked.

Stupid overheat.

She groaned, resorting to throwing the gun itself at the cybernetic creature and then jumping to fire on it point-blank with her pistol. It took three shots before it managed to jump up and push her back, clawing her with enough ferocity to throw her to the ground. Unfortunately for it, she landed right next to her now cooled-down shotgun and managed to grab it and fire. It was tossed by the impact, flying several feet back before it managed to right itself.

When it did, Terra, Garrus, and Wrex all got up as one and fired.

And it collapsed, slowly breaking down.

Terra sighed with relief. Then gave the remains of their opponent a taunting smirk. Then outright started laughing with the giddiness of victory.

Garrus smirked with her. "Come on. Let's get out of here."

As they went off to the side to climb out of the glade and back into the main chamber, Terra looked back out the window. Sovereign lost some of its edge in the wake of its puppet's defeat. Their triumph had left an opening for the Alliance fleet to take advantage of, one the _Normandy_ quickly swooped in lead the charge in. Under a flood of concentrated fire, Sovereign finally fell, breaking into pieces in defeat. While she and her squad-mates got back on the main level and began to back away from the ruins of their own battle, she watched in satisfaction as the Reaper vanguard crumbled, its wreckage scattering across the open space to fly…_directly at them_!

She stopped celebrating and started running. "GO!" She all but pushed Garrus and Wrex to run, diving for the exit as the hall itself all but came crashing down on them.

…

"…did you look over here…?"

"…can't see anything…"

"…let me move it…"

Garrus came to when the rubble shifted and a spear of light pierced his eyes. With a groan, he started pulling himself up, taking account of his injuries—gash in his side, cracked plates on his arm, possibly a sprained ankle. Uncomfortable, but it could've been a whole lot worse.

"Captain Anderson! They're over here!"

Garrus looked up to see Liara putting her biotics to use to hold up a way out of the wreckage. He took her hand and let her help him out so she could drop it.

"It's OK," Anderson was saying as he, Ashley, and Tali helped up Wrex, who seemed to have already regenerated from the worst of it, "It's over. You're safe now."

Garrus breathed easier to hear that. It was over. They'd done it. Maybe now they could finally—

"Where's the commander? Where's Shepard?"

Garrus stopped breathing at all when he heard that. They hadn't found Terra? She'd been right next to him! He looked in dread to Wrex.

Wrex gave a sigh of resignation before shaking his head, looking back at the mass of rubble behind him.

Garrus felt his blood run cold, like someone had sapped all the warmth from the room. No. It couldn't be true. She couldn't be… He started racing towards the rubble to start digging. He had to find her.

Tali stopped him. "Easy. You're in no condition to—"

"I have to try! She might still be—!"

"_Garrus_…" She didn't want to say it was hopeless. She couldn't.

And she didn't have to. Garrus heard it in her voice how little chance there was. He just didn't care. It was Terra. If anyone could make it, it was her. He could already hear her ascending from the ashes to…to…wait. He _was_ hearing her. He turned to watch for some sign of what he knew was coming.

He wasn't disappointed. Suddenly, something was moving through the wreckage to emerge before them. As they all saw what Garrus did, they all turned in amazement to where Terra Shepard jumped up to stand victorious, if not unscathed, upon the remains of her fallen enemy.

Garrus completely forgot about his injuries, racing towards her. When she stepped down from her makeshift pedestal, he leaped to wrap his arms around her.

She smiled as she returned the embrace. "Good to see you, too."

"Don't scare me like that again."

She shook her head, leaning back to meet his eyes. When she did, she forgot all about her witty reply. She simply looked at him, lost in his sapphire gaze. For a moment, they stared at each other, lost in silence and emotions and "what if?" Then they drew closer.

And they kissed.

While the others gave either delighted or stunned reactions, Ashley folded her arms, shaking her head and smirking. "Well, it's about time."

It was. Now that they had done it, they couldn't remember why they had waited so long. They fell into each other, embracing a happiness they had never felt before.

The kind of happiness you can only find from being in love.


	27. Afterglow

Chapter 27: Afterglow

When the battle is over  
When the shadows retreat  
When dawn finally breaks  
In the after comes peace

The battle was over. The geth had been driven out. The Citadel was safe. There had been casualties, the Alliance had lost eight cruisers, but the Council had made it out. The Councilors, in their gratitude, had offered humanity a seat on the Council. Terra took this as a victory in her efforts to ensure unity among their races and promptly nominated Anderson for the position (after she stopped laughing at the news that he had punched Udina in the face to get the docking clamps on the _Normandy_ removed). As she persisted in reminding the Council before leaving the meeting, there were still other Reapers out there that she would stop at nothing to defeat, but for now, she chose to relish their triumph.

And her own.

Her injuries had been treated for all of 15 seconds before her turian snuck up on her to kiss her. She beamed delightedly before returning the gesture. It was strange how easily they'd gotten used to this. He had especially surprised her, considering he had never kissed anyone before and yet had taken to doing so with her as if it was perfectly natural. She surprised herself with how much it felt right. It was the first time she felt this way about anyone. For that matter, it was the first time for him, too.

Which explained why they hadn't realized for so long.

When Terra insisted the crew celebrate their victory, she met with little resistance. But while the rest of the crew was reveling in Sovereign's defeat, Terra was coming to truly appreciate what she had. Kaidan was avenged, Ashley was as at home with the squad as with her own family, Wrex was boisterously issuing challenges left and right, and Liara and Tali were both gleefully clinging to Terra's side as if they were both her lifelong best friends. But her actual lifelong best friend, the one who was now something more to her, stayed off to the side, mostly indulging some of Wrex's shooting challenges…and occasionally tossing admiring looks her way, ones she made sure to reciprocate. They kept their distance for now, resolving to have some time just for each other later, even as it slowly became common knowledge among the crew as well as the squad that the commander and her favorite sniper were basically an item now.

By the time the day was drawing to a close, Terra and Garrus had silently agreed to slip away and went up to the captain's cabin hand in hand. Once they were safely behind closed doors, Terra jumped to kiss him for what she estimated must be the 20th time by now, not that either of them seemed to mind. Even when they separated, they remained wrapped up in each other, both locked in the other's sapphire gaze, both drawn in by the sensation of his talons on her skin and her fingers on his plates.

Garrus smiled, enjoying the feeling of being so close to her in so many new ways. "We should've done this so much sooner."

Terra nodded. "Guess we should just keep doing it for a while."

He looked at her in astonishment, suddenly realizing his previous apprehension had turned completely to hope. "You really wanna try this?"

She smiled. "I do. I mean, we're a perfect match, all things considered. And whenever I think of you, I…" She laughed. "I'm _always_ thinking of you."

Some part of him was flattered to know this, but the rest of him was comparing, sifting through his memories to find the last time she had somehow not been on his mind. He felt foolish not to have figured it out already, now he saw it had pretty much been the exact moment just before he met her. There was more than one kind of love, yes, but she had always been his. "Yeah…that's about how much I'm constantly thinking of you."

She didn't doubt him. He'd made it clear for a long time just how much he cared about her. It was mutual, after all. Her life wouldn't be complete without him in it. She couldn't imagine going one day without knowing he was out there thinking of her.

Just like he couldn't imagine where he'd be without her. As if their spirits were intertwined and his heart would forget how to beat without hers. He leaned closer to breathe in her scent, like Palaven flowers and paint, and felt his pulse rising at the slightest whiff. And this beautiful, powerful human was his? It was hard to believe.

Wait a minute.

Struck by a sudden thought, he leaned back again, glancing down at the shimmering blue charm on her collar. "Oh. Is this…do you—?"

She shook her head, fingering her necklace lovingly. "No. It means even more now." She laid her head on his. "It's still who I am…who I belong with."

He didn't struggle to make sense of her poetic commentary this time. He knew what she meant: she was still family, just in a different way. He almost laughed at the thought of what Solana would say when they told her they were together now. Then he decided to address that later and turned to kiss her again, sliding his hand around her waist—

"Ow," she flinched back, clutching her side where his talons had just grazed.

He dropped everything immediately. He'd assumed the medi-gel had taken care of her injuries like it had his. If she was still recovering, he shouldn't be touching her. "Are you sure you're OK?"

"No, I am. It just needs a little time to heal." The fact that she said this clutching her throbbing wound didn't exactly help her case, though.

He took her by the wrist. "You should be resting."

"Garrus, I'm fine! I appreciate your concern, but you can't worry about me every time this happens!"

"Last I checked, blood loss is just as serious for humans as it is for turians."

"Really, I've had worse!"

He gave her a look.

She considered for a moment… "…OK, maybe not _worse_—"

He shook his head, prepared to drag her to the bed if he had to. Honestly, he admired her selflessness, but sometimes it infuriated him.

She finally yanked his hand off of her arm. "Garrus, I mean it. It's nothing."

He just looked at her, making it clear exactly what was going through his mind right now. "There is no part of you that could ever be 'nothing' to me."

She lost the will to keep arguing when she heard that. She had known he cared, of course, but hearing him say it that way, as if he was the poetic one of the two of them and she was his muse, especially in the new light of their heightening relationship…it was all she could do not to melt in his arms like a puppy. No one had ever cared about her this way, never mind made her want to give the same in return. She couldn't deny him, so she stopped trying.

He led her gently to the bed, drawing her to lie down as he knelt down beside her and carefully checked the wound to make sure it wasn't actually still bleeding. He was hardly an expert in giving medical assistance to humans, but he knew enough to know she was going to need more medi-gel and possibly even a fresh bandage.

He was halfway through asking if he should get some now or wait until morning when she started laughing at him. "If this is the kind of treatment I can expect, maybe I should get injured more often."

He glared at her, even though he was slightly bemused. "Don't even joke about that."

She saw through the mixed reaction. Comparing it to what she remembered of his reaction to her appearance in the Council chamber, she also saw she needed to do something about it. She sat up just enough to meet his eyes resolutely. "I am _not_ leaving you, Garrus. Even if I did, there isn't anywhere I could go where my heart wouldn't still be with you."

He would have dismissed the promise as one she couldn't possibly keep if he didn't know how much she meant it. She had just led the charge that defeated a giant sentient machine to save both their peoples, so he shouldn't put it past her to charge anything else that stood to keep her away from him. He smiled as he determined to keep this in mind. "Mean that much to you, do I?"

She smiled so brightly that her eyes gleamed as she lied back down. "More than anything."

As he committed this moment to memory, he started to wonder if maybe their oh-so-insightful crewmates had actually underestimated just how much they were meant for each other. Finally, he set these thoughts aside and started to get back on his feet. "I should let you get some rest. It's been a long day."

But when he turned to go, she reached over to grab his wrist. "Stay with me."

He hadn't expected this. It wasn't the first time she'd asked for him to stay the night with her, but they'd never actually _slept together_. What's more, she had never asked for no reason, it had always been because she needed him. Well, now she needed him in an entirely new way. And the real surprise in this situation was how readily he accepted it. Once she had made room for him, he simply slid into the bed with her.

There was no awkward shifting, no questioning glances, no hesitation to make contact. She just curled up against him as if it was where she belonged. As she slowly faded to sleep to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, he wrapped his arms around her to hold her close. It was so natural, so _right_, that he could see the meaning behind her earlier words. They were a perfect match.

He smiled as he watched her. She lied there, resting soundly better than she had since Eden Prime. He was glad since she needed and deserved it, but he was also slowly realizing something.

He had never noticed or even considered it before but…she was _beautiful_. The bright sapphire eyes currently closed in sleep but that usually glistened joyfully like stars, the soft brown hair fallen over her right eye and left shoulder that he was almost habitually running his talons through, the tender curves of her ivory form that sparked the artistic side she'd tried to awake in him so long ago—he hadn't seen a single human that compared. Once, he had curiously inquired how attractive she was to her own species and she had, without a hint of irony, categorized herself as "above average," as in "pretty enough to turn the eye but not really anything special." But he saw differently. It wasn't how turians measured beauty and her fellow humans might not see it, but he saw beauty unmatched. Maybe he saw it this way because he was considering not just her physical appearance but her grace, her courage, her kindness, her determination. When he looked at her, he saw all of her, not just body but heart and soul. And he saw someone unique. Someone as close to perfect as he would ever find.

Someone he wanted with all his heart to belong to.

Now as amazed as she was that neither of them had realized in over a decade just how much they were made for each other, he drifted off with her still in his arms. Hoping they could stay that way forever.

They stayed that way for quite some time as it was. It was only when Joker came over the PA to inform the commander that she was needed elsewhere that they managed to pull themselves away (after a few minutes or so). Over the course of the rest of the day, they stayed close, every so often brushing hands or locking eyes or exchanging a brief kiss. When their eventual new assignment came in the form of a mission to make use of their ability to traverse the Terminus Systems unnoticed to wipe up the last geth resistance, Terra was content to believe they were in an actual state of peace following the storm that had been Sovereign.

That thought crashed in on itself on the command deck when she saw Tali hesitantly approaching with her pack in tow.

Though the quarian was reluctant to say it, Terra put the pieces together easily. Saren was defeated and she had the geth data as a Pilgrimage gift, so… "…you're leaving?"

Tali nodded sadly. "I'm booking passage to the flotilla from our next stop."

Terra didn't want to see her go. But Tali was her friend and had family to go back to. If she could go back to Mindoir, she knew Garrus would let her go no matter how much he wanted to keep her close. So she sadly accepted the fact that it was time to do so herself.

When they came to that next stop and Tali had to disembark, the entire squad gathered to give their saddened farewells. Wrex pushed her to show the galaxy what she could do. Liara gave her some words of support. Ashley treated her like one of her little sisters, all but getting emotional over it. Garrus was the one most visibly disheartened over letting her go. The two of them had gotten so close over the course of the mission that, if he wasn't with Terra now, there might have been some lighthearted chatter about a dextro romance budding on the cargo deck. As it was, they had some difficulty separating from their heartfelt goodbyes.

Terra surprised them all when she gave hers. They had all known she would likely have the worst reaction, but none of them had expected her to be so open about it that she outright hugged her quarian friend. "Be careful out there. Stay in touch, OK?"

Tali nodded. "Of course."

Terra smiled as she leaned back. "And Tali? Thank you."

Tali smiled. They could all see it even through the helmet by now. "Anytime…captain."

Terra watched Tali go. She knew the quarian could handle herself and there was no need to worry, but she already missed the engineer's bouncy disposition and friendly manner. The engine room wasn't going to be the same without her. She sighed, bringing herself to accept it as one hand entwined comfortingly in Garrus' and the other clutched her necklace.

Then Wrex shrugged. "Well, I guess I might as well head out, too."

That got Terra's stunned attention. "What?"

"I'd help you with those geth stragglers," the krogan said, "but I've got business on Tuchanka. I figured you could handle things without me."

Just because she could didn't mean she'd want to. It was thanks to this krogan she'd gotten so attached to that she and Garrus had made it through Ilos and the Citadel. She didn't want him leaving right as they lost Tali. But if it was so important that he was going back to Tuchanka after what happened with his father…well, it was best not to stand in his way. "I…sure, Wrex. Go on, if you have to."

He nodded. "Appreciate it, Shepard." He wasn't as easy to read as most people, but it was still clear he meant about more than just the dismissal.

His farewells might not have been as emotional as Tali's on the outside, but they were all just as upset to see him go. Before they even got back on the ship, Terra had the feeling it was a lot emptier.

Ten minutes later, when they were bringing the crew back on the ship, Terra turned to Liara. "What about you?"

"Well," Liara answered, "there are no Prothean dig sites that would require my urgent attention. And I've learned a lot more about them from you than from any of my previous excursions. I was going to stay for a little while longer."

Terra took that as a comfort, but the fact remained that "a little while longer" wasn't forever. Ashley was stuck with her, being an Alliance crewmen assigned to this ship, but Liara was only here by choice. Adventurous archaeologist or not, she would have to go one day and the squad would be just her and Garrus.

Unless…

She turned to Garrus as Liara walked away. "You're not leaving, are you?" He could. He could go back to C-Sec or Palaven, even reapply for that Spectre training he'd missed out on so long ago. It wasn't like she would be out of reach, so there was no point in thinking she was holding him back.

But when he looked at her, he made it clear he didn't care about any of it. "Leave _you_? Never."

She clung to that promise. She missed Tali and Wrex and Kaidan, but she would always have Garrus. When it came down to it, he was the only person she needed. Well, no, not the only person, because she had come to need Tali and Liara and Ashley and Wrex and Joker and all of them, just the one she needed most. She could go on knowing Tali was safe on the Migrant Fleet and Wrex was at home on Tuchanka, but she wouldn't last long if Garrus was taken from her. She'd been relying on him for too long. And now that he was such a big part of her life, likely permanently…no, she was holding on as tight as she could.

When they hit the first relay jump on their new mission, Terra and Garrus sat at a window hand in hand, watching the sky fly past. As she admired the glow of her beloved stars, he admired her. With every second, he looked back at another memory, now reminiscing with the knowledge of what she truly meant to him. It was still hard to believe they'd come so far. To him, she'd been a refugee, a student, a teacher, a best friend, a sister, and now…now…

Uncertain, he leaned back to look at her.

She noticed and returned the glace. "What?"

"…what am I to you now?"

Once she realized what he was asking, she gave him an affectionate smile. "You're what you've always been." She laid her head on his, her fingers softly stroking his mandible. "You're my turian."

He smiled to her in return, his talons tenderly stroking her hair. "And you're my human."

They let those words hang between them and they drew ever closer to each other, content in the knowledge they were ready for whatever came next as long as they were together.

And there was nothing this galaxy could throw at them that could keep them apart.


	28. All Things Must Fall

Chapter 28: All Things Must Fall

No one is invincible  
Withstand  
Resist  
Defeat  
Death will still come for us all

_August 12, 2183…_

If there was one thing Garrus regretted about how things had gone down on the Citadel, it was how trashed they left the Mako. It had taken him a week to get it back in usable condition and he was still fixing it. If anyone but Terra had been responsible, he'd be upset.

He smiled at the thought even as he slid under the Mako to fiddle with the underside. His human had become something more. Things had changed between them forever now. Inside, he had been wondering how long he had been _wanting_ her rather than just wanting to be with her. More so, he had been wondering how he had failed to see it for however long that was. Looking back, it seemed obvious she was special to him in more ways than he saw. Everyone who knew them knew they cared about each other, yet somehow everyone on the _Normandy_ could see before either of them that there was more to it. For once, he didn't care he was the last to know. He was just glad they'd worked out.

He was about to seal off a wiring panel when someone suddenly pulled him out from under the rover. Again, had anyone but Terra been doing it…

She smirked at him from where she was kneeling down and resting her arm on the wheel. "Busy?"

He smirked back. "Kind of, but I always have time for you."

"Sweet talker."

He stifled a laugh before reaching back under the rover to finish sealing the panel. "Did you need something or—?"

Before he could even finish talking, she leaned down to kiss him.

Turians didn't do this, so it should seem strange and alien to him. Yet here he was, kissing her back and wrapping his arm around her to draw her closer.

Terra smiled as she finally drew back. "No. Not a thing."

"There are other people on deck, you two!" Ashley called from her workbench, "Get a room!"

Terra gave her a look. "It's my ship, chief!"

Garrus laughed. She'd been getting a lot of use out of that status, keeping the responses to their constant "sneak attacks" down to some teasing and a few sly glances. Even if they weren't kissing at every available opportunity and looking at each other adoringly every time they were in the same room, the entire crew knew how much they cared about each other. They'd always been inseparable.

He'd found it was fun to test how far that went.

When she turned back from "berating" Ashley to look at him again, he began to stroke her hair. "How's the search going?"

Terra shook her head as his talons threaded the bangs over her right eye. "No sign of any geth yet. We're approaching the Amada system now."

His sub-vocals thrummed a thoughtful noise as his hand slid from her hair to her back. "Heard some ships were going missing around there."

She shrugged as the same talons that dealt so much damage to their enemies drifted down her spine in a way that made her bones shiver with ecstasy. "Yeah, but the stealth systems are active and Joker's at the wheel. We'll figure it out."

He nodded before moving closer, all but nuzzling against her as he breathed in her scent again. "Sounds like you're expecting some action."

"It's…nothing we can't…" She caught herself shivering and it suddenly occurred to her just how much he was getting away with by distracting her with professional talk. "Stop it," she finally snapped, nudging him away.

He smirked as he deliberately slowly withdrew his hand. "What, am I bothering you all of a sudden?"

She rolled her eyes. "You're just abusing your privileges to wind me up, Vakarian."

The look in his eyes in response to this observation suggested that was actually one of several reasons.

She sighed. "Well, if that's how you're gonna be, maybe we _should_ get a room."

He took her hand and let her lead him over to the elevator, ignoring the smirks Ashley kept tossing their way as the door closed. She got her revenge while they were going up, her fingers caressing the nerve endings between the plates under his fringe as she nestled herself against him so that her every breath became torturously close to kissing him. Three seconds of this out of nowhere was enough to unbalance him, forcing him to lean back from her reach and brace against the wall.

She responded with a wry smirk. "What's the matter, Garrus? You can dish it out but you can't take it?" She then proceeded to step off the elevator without him, still sending provoking yet alluring glances over her shoulder at him.

He glared at where she'd been standing as he righted himself and followed. Challenge accepted.

Once they were safely isolated in the captain's cabin, he pounced, kissing her until she melted into him. She wasn't the type to admit defeat so easily, though, so she retaliated, laying a trail of kisses across his mandible until his breath caught. They could've both kept attempting to one-up each other's affections like this, but it was already pretty safe to say it would end in a draw. Instead, they simply clung to each other, lost in the feeling of simply embracing the person they loved most.

Terra sighed contentedly as she laid her head on his. "This is perfect."

Garrus reflected her actions. "It is."

"It always was, actually. It's just that now…" She left her hand drift around to rest where it could feel his heartbeat. The steady pounding was mesmerizing, so much so that she let her thought drift off to be replaced by her memories of her turian.

Again, he followed her, looking back on the time he'd spent with his human. She was right, it had all been perfect.

It was only when she was struck by a sudden flash of desire that she moved again, her hand returning to his to reach for the clasps on his gloves. "Maybe we should—"

Before she could make her proposal, though, the alarms went off. In two seconds, before either of them could react, the ship rattled, throwing them both off of their feet. Then again, followed by a sudden shift in trajectory and spike in temperature.

Terra quickly grabbed the wall and pulled herself up, hitting her COMM. "Joker! What's going on up there?!"

_"Unknown ship caught sight of us and opened fire!" Joker's alarmed response came, "We've got multiple hull breaches and weapons are offline!"_

Terra thought fast, helping Garrus up and grabbing her armor. "We've gotta hit the emergency beacon!"

"We're in the heart of the Terminus Systems!" Garrus retorted as he steadied himself and started fishing for his helmet, "The Alliance won't be able to get a response to us for hours!"

She didn't like it, but he was right. She'd hit the beacon anyway, because there was still a chance, but they needed to take precautions. "Then we evacuate." She grabbed her helmet and raced out to find the beacon, still strapping on her gear and sending the order across the ship to run for the escape shuttles.

He watched her go regretfully. He knew how much she loved this ship. She wouldn't handle it well if she lost it, but she would do whatever it took to save the crew. Moving urgently, rapidly, he finally found his helmet and strapped it on before the life support could fail. Right as he did, the ship was tossed by another strike, sending him to his knees. When he tried to pull himself up, he noticed something. In her rush for the beacon, Terra hadn't grabbed her pack. The one that was still holding her sketchbook and the pencil case her sister had made for her. He didn't bother thinking, he just grabbed it while he could then ran for the door.

Ashley was already unlocking the escape pods and ushering the crew into them. Liara and Dr. Chakwas ducked into one of the first to go, so they were safe, but there was no sign of Joker or Pressly. Garrus told himself they'd make it if they hurried and turned the corner to get to Terra as she sealed her helmet on and hit the distress beacon.

"Joker's still in the cockpit," Terra explained, "I'm going back for him."

"Right behind you," Garrus immediately stepped up.

She stopped. The ship was coming apart already, the fires were raging. She trusted him, she knew what he was capable of…but she couldn't bear the thought of something happening to him. "No. I've got this. You need to go."

"I'm not going anywhere!" he shouted over the ruckus of the crash, "Not without you!"

"Don't make me order you, Garrus!" she snapped back, "Get to the pods! _NOW_!"

At first, he flinched that she'd gone that far. All that time on missions together and she had never once ordered him. Even in combat, her directions for his part had been suggestions or simply intuiting through their bond what they needed to do. She had never been a commander to him, and he had never been serving under her. She had just been Terra and he'd just been Garrus tagging along. To think she might go against that felt like crossing a line.

But she was also right. And if she was willing to go that far to make him realize it, he had to trust her. So he nodded and went along with it. No matter how much he didn't want to.

He ran for the pods. There were only two left and Ashley joining him in this one indicated the last of the crew was off. That meant one left for Joker and Terra. As they took off, he told himself that was a good sign. They'd both make it. _She'd make it._

The second she saw her turian was safely off, Terra took off running. The fire was spreading, pipes bursting left and right to block her path, but she managed to weave around the mess to the stairs. The left stairwell was blocked by a blast of flame, but the right was clear. She raced up it as fast as she could, every step accompanied by Joker's voice in her COMM calling out to whoever would listen that the _Normandy_ was under attack. Hearing that gave her the push she needed to storm up the steps and hit the door to the command deck.

As soon as the door whished open, the remains of the CIC revealing themselves, she hit her mag-boots. The entire deck had been cut open, scraps of it sent floating through open space. Her heart broke to see her beloved _Normandy_ torn apart this way and her fury roared at the ship that had done this. But it was the silence as she stepped sluggishly towards the helm that really got to her.

She wasn't built for silence. The raging cacophony of gunfire, the emotional trills of music, the stimulating chirps of life-bearing worlds—she was made for those. This silence was deafening, dark, and deadly. Of all the things she loved about the galaxy, this cold, imposing emptiness was not one of them.

Focusing on her steps and her breathing, she was able to get to her destination. She found Joker still attempting to get the controls to respond, his breather helmet already on. She rushed up to him. "Come on, Joker. We gotta get out of here!"

"No!" Joker snapped, "I won't abandon the _Normandy_! I can still save her!"

Terra looked at him sadly, placing her hand on his shoulder. "I don't wanna leave her either, Joker, but it's too late. There's no point in you going down with the ship."

He took an achingly long moment to respond. He was hesitant to comply, but she had a point. And if _she_ was telling _him_ to abandon ship, he _knew_ he had to. "…yeah, alright. Help me up."

She nodded, reaching to take his arms so she could support his weak legs. Just as she got him out of the chair, though, the alarm went off again, likely the last response they'd get from any of the ship systems.

"Oh no," Joker tensed, "They're coming around for another attack!"

Terra turned to peer through the cracks in the hull. She caught a glimpse of the ship responsible for all this. She'd never seen a ship like it—asymmetrical, rock-like, hideous. She'd never hated a ship on sight before, unless you counted Sovereign, but there was no other way to describe the distaste she felt, especially when coupled with her vengeful rage on behalf of her own ship.

As if in response to this thought, however, the invading ship opened fire again, a laser carving right through what remained of the deck. They had to move fast. Terra kept a hold of Joker as best she could and scrambled across towards the last pod before the cockpit could disconnect from the rest of the ship. When she finally managed to get to the pod, open it, and strap Joker in, she started to feel a sense of relief that, even though the _Normandy_ was lost, they were free and clear.

Then the ship shot again.

The impact threw her. Her mag-boots lost their grip and she went flying across the deck. She grabbed onto the wall before she could be sent drifting, but she had no way of getting back on the floor to reach the pod again.

"Commander!" Joker called.

In three seconds, she ran through the situation 1000 different ways. The ship was preparing to fire again, aiming right through the center of the deck. She didn't have enough leverage to latch on and jump. She couldn't generate enough force to push herself into the pod before the laser cut right through her along with the deck. She couldn't reach Joker so he could pull her through. She couldn't make it at all.

But she was right next to the button to launch the pod.

So without giving herself a chance to hesitate, she hit the button.

"_SHEPARD_!" Joker cried as he was sealed in and launched off.

Then the ship fired, all but vaporizing what was left of the _Normandy_.

When she started to recover from the tumble she was launched into by the force of that last shot, she took a moment to look around. She was afloat in a cloud of debris and scraps of metal, nothing left of her ship. Their attacker was already leaving, so if she could just direct power to her personal COMM and connect to a buoy, she could latch onto the distress signal and…and…

…oh no.

She reached to check her oxygen supply, hoping she was wrong, but she wasn't. She'd hit the wall before she was thrown off the ship and it had cut right through her breather. She was trying not to panic and exhaust what little oxygen she still had, but it was hard not to panic when her pulse was already rising at the realization that she was three minutes from death. She immediately abandoned her attempt to boost her COMM and started struggling to patch her air valve, every unsuccessful attempt making her more desperate until she felt weight and heat closing in yet again and knew gravity was about to take over. In twenty seconds, she blacked out.

Her last sight was of the stars.

Her last thought was of Garrus Vakarian.


	29. Anguish

Some soundtrack recommendations for the next few chapters: "The Other Side" by Ruelle, "Without You" by Ursine Vulpine ft. Annaca, "Tears of an Angel" by RyanDan, and "Remembrance" by Tommee Profitt and Fleurie.

Also... :'(

Chapter 29: Anguish

We may conquer  
We may rule  
We may survive  
We still grieve

_August 24, 2183…_

Twelve days since the crash. Ten days since they made it to the Citadel. No word from the Alliance.

No word from Terra.

Garrus was losing it. She hadn't been out of contact for so long since Elysium, and even then it was only _three_ days. He had gone back to his apartment, but sitting there and looking at the box containing the last of her family's possessions and the pack he'd rescued from her cabin only made him more worried with every second he didn't receive a message. He just needed to know she was safe. He needed to know where she was.

Walking around the Citadel in the wake of its restoration, he had been watching every shadow and every corner. He was convinced she'd pop out of one eventually. That was always how she came to visit him, surprising him at the last second. And it would be just like her to come out of nowhere after such a spectacular crash, just like how she rose from the wreckage after the battle against Sovereign. He didn't listen to the part of him that was ticking down the passing days as a drop in her survival odds, convinced she was on her way at any moment. She was the one person in the galaxy who stood the most chance of coming back from it. If he had made it out, so could she.

Inevitably, the doubts started creeping in. But he simply redirected them. She was still alive but not yet returning, so something must be holding her back. Had she been stranded on that frozen rock they crashed beside? Had she been sent drifting? It was the Omega Nebula, so there was a not insubstantial possibility she'd been picked up by a wandering band of mercenaries. She might not be able to signal him. He might have to go after her. And he would. He would tear that whole nebula apart to find her.

But he didn't have to.

Tonight, his omni-tool finally received an extranet message. For a glorious second, he was certain it was her and she was on her way back to him, his hopes soaring at the thought of seeing her again after the 12 days that felt like 12 decades. But then he saw who the message was from and those hopes began to fade. Alliance Command, Admiral Hackett himself. Before he brought himself to open the message, he hesitated, clawing to hold onto the possibility that maybe she was in recovery from the crash or there was something keeping her from messaging. She'd listed him as her next of kin when she'd enlisted, so surely he was the first they'd contact to let him know she'd been rescued. Even that shred of hope disintegrated when he started reading it.

The _Normandy_'s black box had been recovered from the crash site. Joker's report was confirmed. She hadn't just been left behind. She'd been spaced.

She was dead.

"…no…" he tried to deny it, "…no, it's not true…" Because it _couldn't be_. It was Terra! She'd survived Mindoir, she'd survived Elysium, she'd survived everything Sovereign threw at her, she would survive this! They were giving up too soon! She was still out there. She _had _to be.

She had to be. Because he couldn't bear to think of a galaxy without her in it. He couldn't go for the rest of his life never seeing her again or hearing her voice again. Especially not now that he knew how they felt about each other. No, she'd been through enough in her life already and they had just gotten together and she was too young, too strong—this wouldn't happen. The universe wasn't that cruel.

"Terra, please," he said, though he knew no one could hear it, least of all her, "You said you wouldn't leave me. …you _promised_."

The longer he fought the news, though, the more he felt it. As the hope that had been sustaining him diminished, the air around him ran cold and hollow. The silence in the room that she would've hated seemed to thicken the sense of emptiness and loss he'd been fighting to drive off and ignore. It was as if all the stars were dimmer. As if half his heart was missing or all of it was broken. …as if his human was gone.

He kept trying to dismiss it, trying to think of some explanation. But it was getting harder and harder to think as the sheer anguish of loss crept in and took over. He could fight geth and krogan and thresher maws, but he couldn't fight this. In a matter of moments, all the strength had been sapped from him and he was slumped on the floor, keening for the first time in years. He didn't know what else he could do.

There was no point trying to deny it anymore. The Alliance wouldn't officially rule her KIA without a body unless they were _sure_. Not their precious Commander Shepard. And to make everything worse, they had a cause of death to go with it. It might not be so bad if she'd simply been hit in one of the attacks or succumbed to the flames or even gotten struck by debris and had her neck snapped like her brother. No. She'd been spaced. …that meant she _suffered_.

And he'd left her there to die.

This thought broke him. The rational part of his brain was quick to remind him that she'd told him to go, that she'd chosen to stay behind and go back for Joker, but the rational part of his brain wasn't exactly functioning at full capacity right now. All he knew was that she had been there on a sinking ship and he had left without her. After he had vowed on countless occasions to always be there for her, he had just _left her behind_ and now she wasn't coming back. _Spirits, Terra, I'm so sorry. I didn't want this. You knew…you knew I couldn't…_

He hadn't had to live without her for 13 years. How was he supposed to do it now?

…maybe he couldn't. Maybe they were so tied together, so in need of each other, that he couldn't find a way without her to guide him. Hadn't she told him how much she admired those romantic tragedies? Her Romeo and Juliet, who chose death over the prospect of eternity without their beloved, or her fellow poet Poe, who literally grieved himself to death after losing his wife. It would be ironic if she became the subject of one of those tragedies. But no. She'd seen enough tragedy in life. She wouldn't want to be inciting more in death. She had chosen to live her final moments without him by her side rather than risking his life. He couldn't go against that. He couldn't let her down. She'd want him to go on fighting. She would need him to.

So that was exactly what he would do.

Then it occurred to him. He was the only one with the news. He had to tell the others.

It took a while to work up the nerve to even open his omni-tool, but he eventually started setting up a message. His parents and Solana, his former squad-mates, Joker and all the other _Normandy_ crewmen he had an extranet address for…there were so many people who had cared about her. They would all be shattered at the news their beloved Commander Shepard was gone. At least he wouldn't be alone. When it came down to actually typing up the message, though, he froze. He couldn't do it. He couldn't write these words. The second he put Terra's name in the same sentence as the fate that befell her, he would be accepting it was true. He'd be resigning himself to living in a galaxy without her in it. How could he face that?

He set the message aside, giving himself a moment to decide how to proceed. When he did, he saw his message thread with Terra. He had never deleted a single message from her. Sorrowfully, he opened it now. The volume of messages in total seemed to number in the millions, so he scrolled to the highlights. Even that much was enough to reduce him to keening yet again. He dropped everything, however, when he came to one message in particular. The one she sent after he told her about Saleon.

_I'm sorry, Garrus. I know this must be killing you. But you did the best you could. What happened is not your fault. You can't blame yourself every time a case goes wrong. That's going to happen sooner or later no matter what you do._

Somehow those words were true again, three years out of time. He hadn't failed her. If she were there to, she would be telling him that. He had to step up now. He had to do what she couldn't. Like it or not, that started with informing the rest of her loved ones that she was gone. So he typed up the message and sent it before the grief could immobilize him again.

It took all of 30 seconds for his omni-tool to flood with replies. Wrex was outraged. Tali was devastated. Liara was heartbroken. Ashley was torn. Joker was stunned silent, which was not like him at all.

Solana was trying to video-chat.

That was the response that gave him pause. His sister would understand better than anyone what he was going through, but he wasn't convinced he wanted her to see him like this. They were family, though, and Terra had spent too long drilling into him that family was the most important thing to hold onto for him to disregard his own sister's attempts to reach out. So he answered.

_He could see in her eyes that she was as almost as upset as he was. "Please don't tell me it's true."_

He wished by all the spirits that he could. He still couldn't bring himself to admit that it _was_ true, though, so he elected to stay quiet rather than risk breaking down.

_His quiet was answer enough. "No… Oh, spirits, Garrus, I'm so sorry."_

She was already trying to console him. She hadn't even heard yet that he was _with_ her. Turians didn't exactly handle it well when they lost their mates.

Mates. Wow. He was actually calling her that. That wasn't a word you just suddenly decided was appropriate. Terra must have been his for some time. And now that he saw it, she wasn't there.

He stayed on the line with Solana for a while, accepting but not really processing her attempts to comfort him. For anything but losing Terra, she might have been successful. Nothing could make this better for him. He didn't bother telling her about how he'd been with Terra for that last week or so—what difference did it make now? When Solana eventually hung up, she looked even more visibly upset than she had when she'd called, so he wouldn't be surprised if she was also keening over the loss of her adopted sister. He was briefly tempted to call Tali and see if she was faring any better, but he had the same reservations as he had for Solana's call; Tali was family, too, but she'd reach out if she needed him.

Following all of these events, he felt emotionally drained. Which, to a turian in this condition, eventually resulted in a physical drain as well. He curled up on his bed, his thoughts empty except for an occasional keen-inducing flash of Terra's smile or touch or…he couldn't take it. He just stayed there, ignoring the constant buzzes of replies to his message. He didn't care what anyone had to say. Nothing would change the fact that he had lost the one person who mattered most to him.

So when Garrus did actually work up the nerve to open his e-mail and saw there was a message from _Terra_ on it, he almost lost it. For one amazing, hopeful moment, he was happy again, thinking that she was alive. But then he opened it and the world came crashing in on him once more.

From: Terra Shepard  
To: Garrus Vakarian  
Garrus…I'm sorry. I don't know how else I can say it, but I'm sorry. Because, if you're reading this, it means I left you. I'm writing it as we start the trip to Ilos and I have it set to send automatically if my account is inactive for more than a few days—you know, if something happens to me. Come to think of it, you getting this message when I'm sure you'll know good and well I'm gone seems like something of a taunt, but I need to say this.  
I love you. I always loved you. From the second you pulled me out of that hole. And I know things have been…complicated between us for a long time. I mean, I claimed you as my next of kin when I enlisted under the title of "adopted brother." For the longest time, I even believed it. But things have changed. I didn't realize at first because I was so convinced what we had was a brother-sister-type bond, but I see it now: _I love you_. Really, truly _love_. I wish I'd seen it before and I hope I get the chance to do something about it, but I thought you should know in case this all goes south. …though, I guess, if things do go wrong and you don't feel that way about me, this is a pretty big weight to leave you with, but you deserve to know. Again, I'm sorry.  
So, if it helps, just remember that. Also, thank you. For everything. For saving me after the raid, for being there for me every day since, for standing by me through all this madness that's been going on lately—just _thank you_. I hope I get to do the same for you someday. But even if I don't, remember this: in my heart, I was always Terra Vakarian.  
No goodbyes, though. I'll see you again on the other side.

He read the message three different times before drawing himself to close it. He read those three little words about 200 different times. _I love you_. The words they'd been edging around because they already knew they both meant it and realized saying it was a commitment they couldn't escape. But she said it anyway. It made him wonder if she had been preparing to say it for real before the attack kicked off. Had she already known they were mates? …was she wanting to prove it?

It was painful to read it under these circumstances, but he was glad she had taken the time to set up that message. He'd be holding onto it and rereading it for a long time. He'd especially be holding onto that last line. Her promise to never leave him made more sense when taken with this new one. When he did eventually face death for himself, she'd be waiting for him. He'd see her again. Until then, she'd be looking out for him. Still, this was a blind hope.

So he found himself doing something he almost never did: he started praying. "Spirits…angels…whatever I should call you…" He sighed, deciding his only course of action was simply to speak from the heart, as she believed was always best. "…take care of her for me. And when the time comes, make sure we're in the same place—an eternity without her is an eternity I don't want." For the last time today, he turned on his omni-tool, finding the picture of him and Terra on the Presidium during her visit seven years ago. She might be gone, but he'd always remember her. "And while you're at it, tell that God up there thank you…for bringing her into my life."

Because the simple truth was that, had he known when he found her on Mindoir that he would grow to love her so much that the loss would break him so deeply and that he would one day lose her anyway, had he been offered the chance to forego this heartbreak at the cost of never knowing Terra Shepard…he would have done the same thing he did the first time. He wouldn't have traded his time with her for anything.

He would always be her turian.


	30. Eulogy

Chapter 30: Eulogy

Death can take away  
But it cannot take what we've won  
Death can be an ending  
But it cannot end those we love

_September 6, 2183…_

The Alliance wasted no time arranging a memorial for their fallen Spectre. It drew quite the crowd, but the people who were allowed entrance to the actual ceremony were those she had known in life. Wrex came back from Tuchanka for this. Tali even arranged transport from the flotilla to be there. Liara and Ashley came, dragging Joker and the other surviving _Normandy_ crewmen with them. Garrus stayed by himself until his family arrived, Solana instantly taking his side and his hand as their parents mourned but also tried to support them both. He could tell it was going to be a long day.

It started so formal that he couldn't shake the feeling she would've hated it. Alliance representatives rattling off her achievements as if a commander was all she was, though they at least had the consideration to point out that the Citadel wouldn't be standing without her. It was only when Anderson stepped up to say something that Garrus started to think this was a memorial she would have appreciated. The captain was set to be officially elevated to Councilor any day now, but at the moment, he was simply Shepard's former CO speaking on her behalf.

"I knew Terra Shepard for five years," he said, "I may not know her whole story, but I knew her. Worked with her, fought with her, trusted her with my life. She had some hard times, had to fight a lot of battles alone. But she always kept fighting. When she was 16, her entire colony was raided by batarian slavers, her entire family killed. She went on to join the service. When she was on Elysium, she lost her squad evacuating civilians, got penned in with almost no resources. She held out singlehanded until reinforcements arrived. There was never a complaint, never a hesitation. Soldiers like the commander are rare. …women like Terra Shepard…even more rare."

It was a much truer testament to her memory than her service history, though every past tense statement hit Garrus even harder with the thought that she wasn't coming back to him. He didn't even notice Anderson offering to give up the stand, as was apparently human custom, until Liara shocked them all by being the first to step up.

"The day I met Shepard, she saved my life," Liara said, no trace of the timidity she'd been so plagued with during the hunt for Saren, "She trusted me when no one else did, treated me like just another member of her crew rather than an asari among humans. I could say it is because of her unique history with the turians, but I believe that merely brought out what was always there. She was kind and brave in a way few can hope to be. She did not deserve all she endured, but she endured it anyway. After all, we rarely receive what we deserve." She hesitated for a moment, finally smiling at the thought she now gave voice to: "But the commander was fortunate in one way. She had three families. Her birth family she lost. Her adopted family she earned. And her crew…her crew she _made_ a family."

That opened the floodgates. Liara had barely stepped down before Ashley took the stand, talking of a soldier that she looked up to, that taught her more than anyone else in the galaxy had, that fought for her men as well as with them. Wrex didn't bother stepping up to give a hearty agreement with Ashley's every word, though the sudden reminder to everyone in the area that an 800-pound krogan was just sitting there seemed to startle a couple people. Some of the other _Normandy_ crewmen took the chance to say something, though most of them kept it short and Joker surprisingly refrained. Tali eventually stepped up to speak of the Spectre that took in a quarian Pilgrim as if she was an equal and became the best friend she'd ever have, somehow managing to keep from crying behind her helmet.

Of course, after Tali had gone, Garrus suddenly realized he was the last of the surviving crewmen. He couldn't go up there. He couldn't talk about his human as if she was gone for good, couldn't even say what he wanted to because their most precious memories were their own. Then there was the fact that, the second he said her name, he would likely break down keening again, which was not something to do in public. He couldn't do this. The longer he sat there in silence, the more he was developing the urge to get up and leave entirely so he could mourn in isolation again.

He hadn't moved an inch before Solana stood up.

He froze as his sister stepped up instead of him, apparently surprising their parents as well. What was she doing?

Solana didn't pay any mind to the confused glances of everyone she passed, she simply took the stand. "I met Terra Shepard the day she was orphaned. I may not have served with her, but I _knew_ her. She was strong, selfless, and passionate. In two months, she'd become like a sister to me. She may not have been turian herself…but she was as much a pride of Palaven as she was of Earth." The humans in the audience might not have taken this as the high praise it was meant to be, but someone had to say it. Solana was more than happy to.

She also drew a flower from her pocket and laid it on the empty casket representing her lost sister's unrecovered body.

Garrus quickly recognized the jura flower. He wondered what the significance was, since the look in Solana's eyes indicated this meant something to her, but he thought it best not to question it just yet. Instead, he used this to find his strength and stood up, giving Solana a grateful and comforting hand as he passed her. But he didn't take the stand. His hesitations were accurate, and what he needed to say couldn't be put to words. Only action. So he copied his sister's action, drawing a Palaven bloom from his pocket and laying it beside the first. A demael flower this time. The kind he drew for Terra. Her favorite.

He was about to step back down without a word when he thought of something else he could do. The song programmed into Terra's pencil case, the one her mother had written and her sister had played and she had sang for him, he had transferred a copy of the audio file to his omni-tool. Hoping nobody would mind even though he knew nobody would recognize it, he hacked into the media system and set it to play. In his mind, he could hear her voice like it was only one night ago rather than 12 years.

…_you may be lost, but the light will show the way, you may lose hope, but every night turns into day, the stars may guide you home, but love will guide your soul…_

The sorrow was gripping him again, but he simply cast his gaze downwards and held onto those words. _Goodbye, Terra._ He may not have said the words out loud, but it still felt like the end. He wasn't letting her go, but he was still leaving her behind. As he turned to head back to his seat, he felt a part of him had died with her.

Halfway down the aisle, Tali suddenly got up and hugged him. He was startled at first—quarians _definitely_ didn't do this…so she must have learned from Terra—before he realized what she was trying to do and sadly accepted the gesture. It didn't make him feel any better, but it was still nice to know she cared. From the way Liara and Joker and even Wrex and Ashley were looking at him, she wasn't the only one, either.

The rest of the ceremony was just that—ceremonious. He could appreciate the soldier's sendoff his human was receiving, but it still seemed dispassionate and impersonal. Strange for him to have that opinion since turian funerals were even more so, but Terra was special and deserved to be treated as such. Then again, she also deserved to live and, as Liara had so eloquently stated, few got what they deserved.

After the memorial itself was fully concluded, Garrus had to silently tolerate a series of "condolences" and "so sorry for your loss." He didn't bother paying attention to it, though he did distantly take note of how even the Alliance personnel were acknowledging his family as Terra's as well. Thankfully, his former squad was quick to suggest clearing the premises and taking the "festivities" somewhere else.

Once they were far enough away, the squad promptly started introducing themselves to Solana and her parents, all wishing they could've met Terra's adopted family under better circumstances. Garrus sat down and observed them. His mother was quiet, reserved, but a fellow turian could see she was miserable inside, having lost someone she considered a daughter. His father was as levelheaded as ever, though he showed his true feelings when he began speaking of Terra reverently and grievingly. Liara was doing a good job of hiding it, but she was crying. Tali was clinging to Solana like she had identified a kindred spirit. Wrex was standing there saying nothing, clearly still too upset to interact with them. Ashley was burying her feelings for the moment, but the fact she had actually let her hair down and put on a black _dress_ rather than a uniform showed how much she was affected.

Joker, however, sat off to the side by himself, all but fighting tears as he looked off into the distance and fought the memories of the crash.

Garrus had spent just enough time around humans to know exactly what was going through his mind. The selfish part of him wanted to blame Joker for it. If he had just evacuated with the rest of them instead of making her double back for him…! …but no. Garrus wasn't that petty. He had been planning the same thing, after all, and she would never have left a man behind.

Besides, the poor pilot was clearly blaming himself enough for both of them.

With a sigh, Garrus realized he was going to have to step in and, while the others were occupied, went over to sit down next to Joker. "Well?"

"'Well' what?" Joker shook his head, not even looking at the turian.

"Am I going to have to play psychologist, or are you going to come out with it on your own?"

Joker might have kept denying it, but the person he was avoiding was the one the commander loved most. The commander he'd let down. The commander he'd…he'd… "…I got her killed."

Garrus had suspected as much. The only person he'd ever had to comfort, though, was Terra, so he wasn't sure what to do here. "That's not true. She wouldn't have left either."

"And yet she was the one dragging me to the pod. If I'd moved just one second sooner, she might even have gotten in with me, but she…"

Garrus didn't want to hear this any more than Joker wanted to say it. He could already picture it. He knew her well enough to know exactly what she would have done. "We all have things we wish we could've done differently. That doesn't always mean we did the wrong thing at the time. You were just trying to look out for the ship, like she would've wanted you to. _It wasn't your fault_."

"Really? 'Cause if I hadn't been on the ship at all, she would've made it."

"No, if you hadn't been on the ship at all, it wouldn't have been able to pull any maneuvers and it would've taken a lot more fire and fallen apart sooner."

"Stop complimenting me. I'm trying to feel sorry for myself."

Garrus smirked. If he was making jokes again, he must be getting a little better. That was a start. "'Blame is a weapon; it hurts those we aim at, but it only damages ourselves.'"

Joker gave him a curious look. "Who said that?"

"…Terra."

Joker stayed quiet. That was unlike him, but it seemed to be because he was thinking over the words, committing them to memory or taking them to heart. Maybe he'd even act on them.

Garrus could only hope. Seeing there was nothing else he could say, he sat back and listened to the conversation still going behind him.

"…not much about the attack," Castis was saying, "Do we know whose ship it was?"

"No," Liara shook her head, "We'd never seen one like it."

"They said it was geth."

Garrus immediately turned to see whose voice that was. An Alliance soldier, passing by on the way out of the memorial. Did he just say…?

"I'm sorry, _what_?!" Joker quickly turned to address the soldier with an incredulous glare, everyone else dropping everything to join him.

The soldier shrugged. "All the reports classified the ship that attacked the _Normandy_ as geth retaliation."

"You can't be serious," Ashley shook her head, "There's no way—"

"Hold on," Garrus stood up, "They gave the KIA ruling because they recovered the _Normandy_'s black box. They have all the sensor readings on that ship. They could _see_ it wasn't geth!"

"They just said the geth were experimenting with new dreadnought forms," the soldier said, "after they succeeded so well with Sovereign."

…

…what?

…_what_?!

Garrus felt like the world had just gone silent, though he could see his mother waving off the soldier with some cursory thanks for the information. This couldn't be happening. They were dismissing it all? They weren't even investigating the ship? They were calling _Sovereign_ a _GETH dreadnought_?! They couldn't do this! Not after all she went through to make them see—!

Anderson. Garrus could see him walking by not far away. He ignored the others' attempts to get his attention, likely with the intention of calming him down (might as well not have bothered), and stormed over. "Whose call was it?"

Anderson looked at him in confusion. "To do what?"

"To pin it all on the geth like nothing else is wrong!"

Seeing the problem, Anderson sighed regretfully. "The Council. They're issuing official reports to the public in three days."

Garrus couldn't believe it. Terra told him the Council was taking the Reapers seriously when they gave the humans a position in their ranks. She told him they had agreed measures needed to be taken and hadn't even tried to debate the matter. What, were they just trying to appease her? Putting on a show to her face and then sweeping it all under the rug the second she turned her back like all she'd done for them, including _saving their lives_, was pointless?! Her grave hadn't even been dug yet and they were already stomping all over it!

Thankfully, he wasn't alone in his infuriation. Ashley quickly stepped up beside him to demand "And no one's stopping them?!"

"I'm trying," Anderson retorted, "I took the Council position hoping I could persuade them to take precautions, but they're insisting on not doing anything to worry the population until we're absolutely certain, at least not while the Citadel is still being restored."

"So everything's just going to go back to normal?" Garrus growled, "Like she died for nothing?!"

"Garrus!" Solana quickly stepped in, all but dragging her brother back. She knew he was temperamental at times, but she'd never seen him get _this_ bad.

Anderson himself simply held Garrus' gaze with sheer determination. "I am _not_ letting that happen, Vakarian."

Garrus restrained himself when he heard that. He could trust Anderson, especially when it came to preserving Terra's memory, and he would have the means of upholding his word with the power of a Council position. Things were going to change. They just had to give it time.

Not that there was any guarantee they'd change for the better. Not that time had ever solved anything.

Solana waited for Anderson to walk away, following a brief exchange of respectful nods, before turning to shove Garrus with a sharp glare. "What was _that_ about?!"

"The Council being a bunch of blind pyjaks, if you ask me!" Wrex snarled, "Though I don't know what we were expecting."

"How about taking some action in response to the person who saved your scaly hides suddenly dying in the vacuum of space?" Ashley shook her head.

"Everyone calm down!" Liara stepped in, "They'll see reason eventually. Getting upset about it does no one any good."

"Oh, doesn't it?!" Garrus snapped without thinking, "Something we know nothing about comes out of nowhere, destroys our ship, and _kills Terra_ and everyone is happy to just ignore it and move on _and you expect me to CALM DOWN_?!"

"Garrus!" Castis finally asserted, "Get a hold of yourself! I know this is hard on you, but we both know she wouldn't want you to—!"

That did it. With a growl, he pushed back. "You don't get to tell me what she'd want!" Before he could receive a response, he stormed off. He'd regret lashing out at his father later, but right now…right now he couldn't think straight enough to feel bad about anything. Anything except the fury pounding in his veins. …and the hole inside of him.

He didn't even realize what exactly he'd just done. The growl in his sub-vocals before he'd snapped had been a message, one no translator could pick up. _She was mine._ His parents seemed to have missed it, but Solana was staring at him in shock.

Tali sighed. "I'll talk to him."

"No," Solana quickly stepped up, "Allow me." She hurried off after her brother.

Garrus saw her coming, but he didn't slow down. "Leave me alone, Sol—"

"Yeah, I don't think so." She picked up the pace enough to catch him, dragging him around a corner. Once they were out of sight, she turned to him. "When did this happen?"

He gave her a look. "What are you talking about?"

She simply looked at him. A look that said exactly what she had heard.

When he saw what she meant, he winced, his rage caving in to regret and loss. He had been hoping he wouldn't have to say anything. No point in hiding it now. "The night before Ilos."

Over a month ago? She gave him a stunned lock, not sure how to respond. "Why didn't you tell me?!"

"We were going to, but…we…" He couldn't say it.

He didn't have to. She could tell what had happened: they had been getting used to it themselves and didn't have a chance to share the good news with Solana before the ship was attacked. She would have been so happy for them both, but now she was miserable on her brother's behalf. To think that he had lost the most important person in his life so soon after letting her become something more…to think that they…had…wait… "…you were mated, weren't you?"

He wasn't even surprised she picked up on it so much faster than he had. If the entire crew could tell they were in love, a fellow turian could easily tell it went deeper. "Not officially, but yeah."

She saw now how serious it was. Turians didn't believe in small-scale war and they certainly didn't believe in small-scale romance. They had flings and casual dates, sure, but when they really cared about someone enough to even consider calling them a mate, it was _serious_. He might not have had the chance to make any promises or commitments with Terra, but she knew good and well no one else he might find love with could ever compare. "Garrus, I…I'm so sorry."

He was getting sick of hearing that, but from Solana now, he knew it was real. She understood in a way no one else could. But even she couldn't really help him. Nothing could change the fact Terra was gone. For good.

Seeing there was nothing she could say, she resorted to offering him some form of comfort to lean on, laying her head on his.

It didn't help, but he accepted the gesture anyway. Maybe having a sister to lean on would help him like it had helped Terra after Mindoir.

Or maybe nothing could fill the void she'd left.

After they stayed close in complete silence for five minutes, Solana carefully asked if he was willing to head back. He wasn't, but he also wasn't roiling with helplessness and rage anymore, so he nodded and followed her back. Tali was quick to attempt consoling him, and though it did no more to soothe him than Solana's attempts had, he appreciated having her there. His mother decided it was best they move on from the conversation that had set them all off, prompting a series of recollections of happy memories Terra had left them all with.

This was much more friendly territory for them all. They all fell into reminiscences of the first human Spectre, especially Solana. Garrus rode the wave of memories at first, seeing his human every time he closed his eyes, but he couldn't escape the undercurrent that was the lingering sorrow—_These memories are all you have of her now, you'll never see her again. _He still somehow made it through the rest of the day before his former crewmates decided it was time for them to go, offering some last sympathies on their way out.

"We should probably give you some time alone," Solana told Garrus sensitively, "We might be able to catch the next transport to Palaven if we hurry." Their parents were clearly about to debate this, but she silently told them it was for the best and started to lead them off.

Garrus was ready to let them head out without a word when he realized something. They hadn't understood what the earlier outbursts from him and the squad were about. He and Terra had never warned them. He couldn't let them leave without knowing. She wouldn't have let that happen. "Actually…" He turned to his family as they stopped preparing to go and instead faced him. "…there's something we need to talk about."

So he spent the next hour or so explaining everything that had happened on the mission to stop Saren, beginning with Eden Prime and ending with the attack on the Citadel. He told them everything he knew about the Reapers. They graciously withheld any questions or disbelieving exclamations until the end, by which point they were so stunned there was nothing to say. They understood now, though. Terra had been doing everything in her power to ensure Palaven and the rest of the galaxy didn't fall as the Protheans had. It seemed pretty impossible. But it only seemed that way.

Castis finally got up and turned to activate his COMM.

"What are you doing?" his wife questioned.

"Calling the primarch. If Terra only managed to delay the Reapers and not stop them, we need to start preparing while we can."

Garrus looked at his father, suddenly impressed. A detective through and through, not dismissing the evidence no matter how crazy it sounded.

If only the Council had listened.

Solana took Garrus' side again as their father stepped aside to make the call they hoped would fall on ears less deaf than the Councilors'. "Be honest. Are you really warning us because you actually think it'll do any good?"

He sighed. "It'd be nice if it did, but I'm not getting my hopes up." He looked her in the eyes, letting the urgency of this matter come through. "They won't stay away for long. I don't wanna risk losing you all. She'd want us to do everything in our power to save Palaven, but I need you to make sure our family is safe. Whatever it takes."

She nodded. "We'll be ready. …I hope."

That was probably the best he could hope for. When he finally said his goodbyes to his family and let them set off to return to Palaven, he starting holding onto the hope that, even though Terra was gone, he hadn't lost everything.

Not yet.


	31. Departure

Chapter 31: Departure

At times the weight we carry is too great  
It is instinct to flee  
To run from or toward  
From will follow  
Toward will call

_October 18, 2183…_

67 days since the loss of Terra Shepard. 55 days since they found out she was gone. 42 days since the funeral. 39 days since the Council began relaying false reports to allay the public. 18 days since the _Normandy_ crew had bothered to contact each other.

Wrex had gone straight back to Tuchanka after the funeral was over, said he had business with the krogan clans that wouldn't rest. Tali went off to rejoin the Migrant Fleet, stayed in touch with some of her non-quarian friends for all of two weeks before dropping out of contact for some "secret missions." Ashley returned to the Alliance military, devoted her attentions to her work as a soldier and attempting to forget her grief. Liara planned to go back to work at the Prothean dig sites but didn't see the point anymore…said she had "business with the Shadow Broker to attend to."

That left Garrus alone. Truly alone for the first time in 13 years. His father didn't seem to understand. His mother seemed to, but she wasn't feeling well lately. He could always talk to his sister, but he didn't have the heart to anymore. All that was left to leave the grief behind was to drown himself in work. But given the red tape tying him down at every turn hadn't gone away in his absence, he hadn't lasted long.

So now he was sulking in his apartment. Again. He'd been doing that a lot recently, now he thought about it. He wasn't sure what to do with himself in a world without Terra Shepard. She wanted him to keep fighting when she couldn't, but there was nowhere he could go to do that. He felt trapped. He'd always hated that feeling.

So had she.

She wouldn't stop haunting him. He dreamed about her every night. Her memory was everywhere. He saw her every time he closed his eyes. He heard her voice in every song, saw her hand in every piece of art he walked past. It was paralyzing at times. Occasionally, he wondered if she would be so lost had their positions been reversed, but he figured she'd recover more easily since she would still have a way to vent her loss as a Spectre. He was just alone. And the person he usually talked to at times like this was her. Spirits, he missed her.

A beep from his COMM startled him back into reality. He checked his omni-tool. Solana was trying to call again. He thought about dismissing the call entirely, even if it meant wallowing in grief and self-pity for the foreseeable future. He appreciated how hard she was trying to be there for him, but it wasn't making things any easier. Then again, their father was trying to use some of his pull in the hierarchy to get the word out about the Reapers and she might have news about their progress. So, against his better judgment, he answered. "What is it?"

_Solana hesitated. That alone was worrying. "It's Mom." Her tones were something far worse._

Garrus tensed. Solana wasn't easily shaken. This couldn't be good news. "What? What happened?"

_"She got worse, weaker. We had to take her to a doctor to see what's wrong. She…she's in the early stages of Corpalis."_

If he hadn't already been sitting down, he would've lost his footing. As it was, the room seemed to be spinning. Corpalis Syndrome. That was one of the worst diseases a turian could contract. It wasn't communicable or genetic. But it was fatal.

_"The doctors say she has time, but…once it hits her brain, it…"_

This couldn't be happening. The denial and helplessness was crushing, deafening. Distantly, he was aware of Solana going on about how the salarians had some experimental treatments they could try, but he wasn't really listening anymore. His every thought was ringing with dread. _We just lost Terra. We can't lose Mom, too._

_"…Garrus? Garrus, please tell me you're still there. I don't know what to do."_

"…neither do I, Sol."

They stayed on the line for a while, talking about nothing as they both wrestled with the sorrow. When they finally concluded they needed some space and Solana finally hung up, he just sat there. He didn't have it in him to break down again.

It was official now. His whole life was falling apart. With every passing day, he was taking one step deeper into a bottomless pit of loneliness and despair.

Oh, great, now he was _thinking_ like Terra.

He started pacing after a moment, more lost than ever. Terra would be heartbroken to see how things had so quickly and so badly gone wrong. But she wouldn't give up. There had to be something… He stopped dead in his tracks when his eyes fell on the box in the corner of the room.

In all the years he had been guarding the box filled with her family's possessions, he had never actually opened it. Now he did. Some part of him still felt like this was an invasion of her privacy, but she wouldn't have cared. She had nothing to hide from him.

Her father's workbook, filled with notes and charts and mementos. Her brother's only published work, one of her favorite written pieces. Her sister's violin, beautifully decorated with her own painting of flowers. And her mother's every sheet of composed music. This last one was what drew his attention. It didn't take long for him to find an omni-tool program that could translate sheet music into synthesized notes. It wasn't the same as an actual performance, but it was enough to show him why his human had so loved it all. When he recognized one, bringing forth the memory of the night she sang for him, he closed the program, put everything back, and turned to the pack he had saved from the _Normandy_. He pulled out the pencil case and opened it, letting the sound of Violet Shepard's piano prowess fill the room and bring with it the phantom sound of Terra's poetic voice.

After the song came to an end and the recording in the case began to loop, he closed the case and put it back in the pack. When he did, though, his talons brushed against the sketchbook that was also in there. Though he knew what awaited him, he pulled it out and began to flip through it. Every page felt like a soothing touch and a punch to the gut at the same time. Half of them were her favored landscapes and horizons and constellations. Then there was the portrait of the _Normandy_ in flight, the pained reflections of the Prothean vision…and all the works inspired by her love for him. By the time he reached the last page, he had to shove the book back into the pack just to keep from breaking down and keening again. He turned to close the box as well, but before he could, his eyes fell on the last of its contents: another book. One her brother had made for her 16th birthday out of her previous works.

Without thinking, Garrus took the book and began to flip through it, looking at each of her beloved artworks in a grieving new light. Each of these pieces had been drawn or painted before the raid, when she was still young and carefree and innocent, and it was astonishing how those differences displayed themselves in her otherwise familiar handiwork. It made him regretful he never got the chance to know her then, no matter how much he loved who she became. It was the pages carrying written lines alongside the images that truly struck him. Slowly, her poetic thoughts began to speak to him—"The mightiest stone is felled by patient rains," "Only adversity can forge a diamond," "Even death cannot dim a star."

It was only when he turned one page and saw a painting of a raging fire that he stopped. The image was one of her most remarkable, reds and yellows blending in flowing patterns that made it seem alive and flickering. But what truly stilled him was the message accompanying it.

"Injustice is blind, so justice cannot be."

She wrote it long before she met him, long before she became familiar with his plight against injustice or her sympathy for it or the struggle he endured nearly constantly to solve it. But it was somehow exactly what he needed to hear right now. He was feeling so useless because he was being held back, because the standard of "blind justice" had hampered his every attempt to do good and honor the memory of his fallen love. If he could find some way around it, some way to be the champion she saw him as…

…but he couldn't do that here.

That settled it for him. That night, Garrus emptied his apartment, taking everything he could possibly need and every single one of his human's belongings. Then he made his way through the Citadel to the docking bay, sending a note to his family along the way that he was relocating and not to worry if they lost contact. _I need some distance. I need to be anywhere in the galaxy but here._ He didn't stop moving until he reached the docking bay. But as he looked around for his way off, he realized he didn't know where to go.

He couldn't go back to Palaven. Not now. He wouldn't be able to leave his family and he couldn't just sit there helplessly while his mother slowly started to waste away. He needed to go somewhere he could _do something_. But where could he possibly make a difference on his own? He started examining all the ships currently docked, hoping they'd give him an answer as easily as her book had. An Alliance cruiser headed towards Earth, a turian navy ship going to Taetrus, a mass transport frigate headed…for Ilium. Then he remembered. The drug dealer he had busted the week before. Upon asking where the product was coming from, the answer couldn't have been more clear.

_"Omega! It all comes from Omega!"_

Omega. Crown jewel of the Omega Cluster. Heart of the Terminus Systems. Star station for lawlessness and crime. If one was looking for the biggest nest of mercenaries, murderers, and thugs in the galaxy, that would be the cesspool to start in. No one in the galaxy needed more help than the civilians that'd been trapped on that station over the years.

Maybe, if he couldn't make a dent in the criminal underground of the Citadel, he could hold some sway on Omega. His more extreme methods would definitely be _appreciated_ there. It still seemed like a daunting task since the station was so overrun and one person could only go so far, but one person was better than nothing. If nothing else, he wouldn't exactly be left wanting for targets.

It was awfully close to where he lost her. But that would just serve as a reminder of what he had to do.

So he took hold of everything he was bringing and hopped on the frigate that would set him on his path. However this ended, he was done being helpless. He was taking charge. He was kicking back.

For her.

_October 25, 2183…_

Maybe seeking to show Omega some justice was a bit of a lofty goal. But if he was looking for some injustice to vent his aggressions on, he certainly didn't have to look far. He'd barely stepped off the transport from Ilium before he found his first targets—some street thugs shaking down a human couple. It didn't take much to blindside the thugs and take them down. Then it was just a matter of making sure the couple was uninjured and sending them on their way before more trouble came calling.

"Thank you," the woman wouldn't stop saying as she left, clearly not used to strangers acting kindly around these parts, "You're an angel."

He tried not to think of Terra when he heard that word, keeping his reaction down to a simple grateful acknowledgement. "Something like that."

Things only got worse from there. Every step he took in this place was met with another sight that set his blood boiling. It was as if 90% of the station populace was composed of drug dealers, slavers, and mercenaries. He wanted to methodically hunt them all down and make them pay for their numerous misdeeds, but throwing himself at thousands of them at once wasn't likely to end well. He had to think this through, find a way to go about this.

What would Terra do?

Regardless of his chosen path, he eventually found himself in the club called Afterlife that the station was basically centered on (_Because all roads lead to the Afterlife, yes, you're very clever._). He figured this was as good a place as any he'd find here to strategize where he would go next, so he grabbed a seat and started thinking things over.

Again, it wasn't long before someone found trouble. It still wasn't him just yet, but it was another turian. Cornered by a krogan, not much chance on his own. Garrus didn't have to spend much time examining the situation before he saw he'd have to move in. So he did. While the krogan was focused on his target, Garrus came in hard, throwing the krogan off balance and disarming him before using his bulk against him in a sweep attack that landed him flat on his hump, exposed for a sharp enough kick to the face to knock him out.

Once the krogan was down, at least until he regenerated, Garrus helped up the other turian. "You alright?"

The turian nodded. "For the moment. …you might not be."

Confused at first, Garrus looked around. Apparently, the krogan was with the Blood Pack. And wasn't the only one there. He shook his head. "Figures. But I've had worse."

"Oh, really?"

"We can take 'em."

"I admire your optimism."

But Garrus wasn't optimistic. He was tactical. All of Omega may have been a tough call, but in the case of just a handful of mercenaries, numbers could be turned to their advantage. Some feints to make them charge each other, some clever maneuvers, and a few well-executed CQC moves later, the two turians were the last ones standing. They quickly left the club before reinforcements could arrive or the situation could escalate.

"Impressive," the other turian commented once they were clear.

Garrus shrugged. "Like I said. I've had worse."

The turian looked at him curiously. "Who are you again?"

Frankly, he'd been wondering himself. Who was he if he wasn't Terra's? A failed C-Sec officer? A former sniper? Maybe that was another reason he had to leave the Citadel behind—to figure out a new place for himself. Of course, none of that answered the question, so he simply answered "Name's Garrus."

The other turian nodded. "Sidonis."

Garrus found himself sticking close to this Sidonis as they made their way to a vantage point from which they could see Afterlife. The Blood Pack members they hadn't killed before hurrying out eventually stumbled out, grumbling over their defeat, but what Garrus really took note of was how half of the other patrons of the club seemed to be gang members and mercenaries. It made his stomach turn watching these scum walk free while Terra was gone. "Someone has to do something about this."

Sidonis looked at him, confused. "What?"

He had been so upset he hadn't even noticed he'd said it out loud, but it was better he had. "This place is overrun with the worst criminals in the galaxy. Someone has to make sure they don't spread any farther."

"Garrus, you can't possibly take down every crook on Omega."

Garrus smirked. "Not alone."

Sidonis quickly realized what Garrus was suggesting. "No, no, wait a minute—"

"You seemed pretty capable back there."

"Yeah, after I was not being pinned down and beaten up."

"All the more reason for you to make sure no one else has to go through that."

Sidonis was not easily sold on this plan. But he was sold. He finally nodded. "Alright. What's the plan?"

The plan was simple at first, though it wouldn't remain so for long. They had to make sure they had enough manpower to take on the gangs. Then it would be a matter of strategy and execution, playing the tactics that took down those Blood Pack thugs on a high enough scale to affect the rest of their ranks. It wouldn't be easy. But Garrus knew it would work. He had to take charge and take the fight to them.

That was what Terra what do.

_January 3, 2184…_

The more he thought about it, the more he realized it was more or less what Terra had done. All he had to do was set his goal and prove he could get there. People lined up behind him. In two months, he had a full team of twelve. A few of them weren't convinced at first that this would be enough, but Garrus was certain it would. Seven had been enough to take on the fight against Sovereign. As long as they were skilled, twelve against these uncoordinated goons would be good enough to keep them on their toes if not outright send them running.

And that's exactly what they did.

It started small—a few scouting ventures through the outer areas, some deterrent or intervening acts—but it was no time at all before they were planning their first big assault. They still didn't press their luck just yet by going after the big mercenary gangs like the Blood Pack or the Blue Suns, instead focusing on a small drug-dealing gang run out of Kima District. It didn't take much reconnaissance to determine that the gang would be sending several of its members for some big score tonight. If they played this right, they could do some serious damages to the crooks' operations.

Garrus took charge of the assault plan. It amazed him how easily and how well he settled into the role. He'd never even tried being a leader before, even though he was technically on standby for that duty on the _Normandy_ ground missions. But here he was, commanding a team with no objections. And part of him was willing to admit he liked it.

They moved in that night quietly, stealthily. While they hid in the shadows, the gang members began arriving. Once all the pieces were in place, Garrus gave the signal. Their explosives expert, who Garrus reckoned was a former STG member, had set up a charge to go off right as the gang members walked past. Five immediately went down. Then it was just a matter of not missing any shots before the survivors could draw any weapons. In less than a minute, only one of the gang members was left alive, one that promptly fled the scene at full speed.

Garrus had this one in his sights. But he thought it over before taking the shot. This one was frightened, panicked, likely past the point of thinking straight. Which meant he must be going somewhere he felt safe. Which meant…

"Are you taking the shot?" Sidonis asked.

Garrus shook his head, holstering his rifle. "No. This one we're following."

The runner was watching his back, but not well enough to spot Garrus as he and his stealthiest teammates shadowed the man. At the end of the chase, they had arrived at the building that was clearly serving as this gang's base of operations. It was well hidden enough that they would have struggled to find it on their own, with sight lines and defenses that Garrus couldn't help but admire but that the gang clearly weren't making efficient use of. He already had a plan forming in his mind for how to approach this.

Again, when he proposed it to his team, he met no objections.

So they came back in a few hours and laid siege to the entire remainder of the gang. A few explosions set them scrambling to defend themselves, giving the batarian tech expert (no, really) on Garrus' team time to hack into the systems and give them entry. There was a reason this gang was not such a big deal around these parts yet, riddled with weaknesses for them to exploit. Every time the gang threatened to regain the advantage just by outnumbering them, a flashbang would set them off balance or a well-executed feint would leave them open to a blindside attack. In no time at all, it was down to the leader. The gang leader retaliated most fiercely, pinning down two of them and threatening to open fire. Garrus responded by overloading his shields and shooting him in the head.

They'd cleared the whole base with no casualties or even any major injuries. Maybe they could pull this off after all.

"Clear," Sidonis finally reported, "What do we do with this place?"

Garrus smirked. "I think it'd make a pretty good base."

While the others were staking their claim on the building that night, he was checking to make sure his gear hadn't been damaged in the fight. Specifically, he worried about his visor. It'd been invaluable in all the firefights he'd been in so far…and _she_ had gotten it for him. Thankfully, it seemed undamaged, but it got him thinking. He was the leader now. If he was going to be relying on this thing, he should be using it to remind himself who was relying on him.

So he fired his up his omni-tool and set to work. In a few minutes, he'd carved a series of names into the frame. Erash, Monteague, Mierin, Grundan Krul, Melenis, Ripper, Sensat, Vortash, Butler, Weaver, Sidonis.

He was tempted to add Terra's name or even the _Normandy_ squad, but he didn't. He wouldn't need any help remembering them.

By the next morning, three things had happened. First, he had successfully set up this building as a perfect base of operations for his own team, claiming one room for himself by carefully moving his few possessions and the possessions of his lost human there, and started setting up better defenses, including some security shutters in the basement and a sniper's perch overlooking the bridge leading to the entrance that he could already tell would bottleneck any invaders directly into his line of sight. Second, the team had taken the liberty of organizing their efforts and preparing for the next assault ahead of time, some of them cautiously scoping out the rest of the district for other vulnerable criminal operations while the others brainstormed how to obtain resources with which to start destabilizing the more major gangs like the Eclipse. Third, word had begun to spread through the station's civilian populace of some mysterious vigilantes interfering in the business of the station's common criminals—so far, in fact, that they had already given the leader of this strange new faction a name.

Archangel. Not what he would've picked for himself, but it would do.

Terra would have approved of it.


	32. Vigilance

Chapter 32: Vigilance

Vigilance is wisdom  
To watch  
To be prepared  
To know when you are needed  
And act

_April 11, 2184…_

This day was the hardest Garrus had experienced in months. The second he'd woken up and seen the date, his first thought had been to call Terra or send her something. Then he'd remembered what had happened and his every thought since had been of her and his most painful regrets. He had so carefully made sure to do something for her every year on this day because he knew how much it meant to her. And now he couldn't. Or he could but it wouldn't matter. She was still gone.

Spirits, if _this_ was hard, what was he going to do in 13 days, when it became the anniversary of the day he met her?

Probably go kill a bunch of slavers, actually. They weren't exactly hard to find around here.

He sighed sadly, pulling from his pocket the drawing he had kept with him for nearly that long. As he looked at it, he thought of her drawing it outside their house on Palaven, soft brown hair blowing in the wind, bright blue eyes focused on capturing the landscape she was slowly coming to love like her own home. He wished it was that easy to simply fall into the memory, to be there in that moment with her again and see it for what it truly was, for one of the first moments in their relationship that he came to truly love her—

"Garrus?"

He frantically folded the page and slid it back into his pocket, turning to face the door as it opened.

Sidonis was there. "That Eclipse shipment. We think we've got them."

Garrus steeled himself, trying his hardest to push away the echoing thoughts of his human and the future they'd been denied. This was the first time the team would be able to impact operations for one of the major mercenary gangs on Omega. This was their chance to start changing things. "Let's get ready to move, then."

The drug shipment was going down the next district over, a stereotypical back alley deal. That was the mercs' first mistake. If the team could sneak into place fast enough without being noticed, they'd have the high ground on an area clear of civilians. Then it was just a matter of sabotaging the entire operation and making sure none of the mercs made it out alive. Simple enough, not that Garrus had any illusions about it staying that way. The team was more than ready when the time came for them to move out.

It started according to plan. They were able to get in position and watch silently as the Eclipse arrived. Judging from past experiences, it should be all downhill from there, but that remained to be seen. They stayed at the ready until they were certain all the mercenaries had arrived and taken position and any civilians were clear of the premises. Then the madness began.

A carefully aimed grenade blew the entire shipment. The mercs were caught off-guard, struggling to determine where it came from, allowing several headshots to take their numbers down. The ones that were left went running right into a well-prepared kill-zone. Crossfire and snipers. Clean and surgical.

No survivors.

It was when they moved in to make sure the area was secure that the real difficulty revealed itself. Garrus had long since come to rely on heat signature detection from his visor scans for checks like this, and one of those quickly determined they had missed one of the mercs, one that was now hiding under the remains of the shipment. He promptly signaled Erash and Ripper and indicated such. The two responded by removing the obstruction and uncovering the hidden mercenary, who in turn drew his weapon to defend himself. The one shot he managed to get off hit the floor when Ripper shoved him and restrained him.

"What do we with this one?" Butler asked.

"I say we let him send a message to his gang that we're coming for them," Ripper sneered.

"Good luck," the mercenary snarled, "Soon as they know who you are, they'll hunt you down and—" He stopped when he turned to their leader.

Garrus and the mercenary recognized each other at the same time. During that period in the hunt for Saren between Noveria and Virmire, when they'd had no leads and had gone chasing every assignment the Alliance was sending their way, the _Normandy_ squad had more than a few scrapes with the mercenaries attempting to stake their claim in the Traverse. This particular mercenary had been part of the gang that was helping out an asari slaver in the Artemis Tau cluster that turned out to be the sister of a Citadel diplomat. He'd been just as much of a coward on that occasion as well, but back then he'd had the guts to surrender. So Terra had sent him running. It'd been clear she wanted badly to put a bullet in his brain (or maybe she was angry enough to aim elsewhere first) for working with a slaver, but she wasn't the type to promote unnecessary bloodshed and had let him off with a warning that she wouldn't be so charitable if she saw him again. And yet here he was, on Omega of all places, in the ranks of the Eclipse.

Garrus couldn't say what drove his reaction to this realization. Maybe it was simply the cold calculation of not wanting him to say anything in front of the team about how he used to work with Commander Shepard herself. Maybe it was that he finally had an attainable vector with which to air out his vengeful side over the loss of Terra Shepard. Or maybe he was just living up to Terra's warning where she couldn't do so herself. Whatever the reason, he drew his gun and opened fire, shooting the mercenary down.

"What happened to sending a message?" Mierin asked.

"Why bother?" Garrus retorted as he holstered his gun, "If they don't know we're the ones behind this, they might think the Blood Pack or the Blue Suns were trying to undermine them and start taking each other out." It was a good enough reason, one they all agreed with even if some of them thought it a bit underhanded, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he didn't believe it himself. As they left the scene and his team started relishing the fact they had succeeded in sabotaging an operation of a major gang, he tried not to think about how some part of him was sneering at his own actions. Some part of him that seemed to say he wasn't doing what Terra would have wanted at all.

Despite his inner doubts, the tactic worked for a while. When word reached the rest of the Eclipse that someone had sabotaged their shipment, they switched from not even acknowledging the other two gangs to attempting some form of retaliation on both without even determining which of them might have done it. It worked so well for so long that Garrus started to worry it might spark a gang war that would put the station's civilians at risk, but those civilians unwittingly averted that by spreading word from some witnesses in that district that Archangel was the one behind it. Once Eclipse seemed to realize this was actually the most likely answer, they started shifting gears. Suddenly, this Archangel was less a rumor and a nuisance than a genuine threat. Pretty soon, they'd start hunting him down like that mercenary warned. Pretty soon, when Archangel and his team started sabotaging Blood Pack and Blue Suns operations, they _all_ would. He didn't care, though. It didn't matter what happened to him as long as those gangs started losing the power and influence that was letting them act without scrutiny through this entire region. It didn't matter if he died if only as many civilians as possible were freed from those scum's grip.

That same small part of him wondered if that was truly noble or just self-destructive. He didn't really want to know.

While the rest of the team was discussing vulnerable Blood Pack operations and strategies for avoiding Eclipse payback, Garrus was on the top level of their base, watching the bridge from the balcony as he tended to his rifle. No sign of any trouble or even that the gangs knew where they were, but he didn't see the point in being careless. Especially if it distracted him from the lingering doubts he couldn't seem to get rid of.

Garrus finally set his rifle down and again pulled the drawing from his pocket. As he looked at it, it suddenly occurred to him that no one else in the galaxy would ever get to see what she had been able to create. They would only ever see her as a war hero. The turian in him figured that was more than enough, but the rest of him disagreed. She was so much more than anyone would ever know. She was so much more to him.

When he sadly folded the drawing back, he looked out at Omega through the window. She would've hated this place. And he'd trapped himself here. She wanted better for him. Half of him knew this wholeheartedly, knew she would have wanted him to move on, knew she would have wanted him to stand up and lead where she couldn't rather than running away.

_Yeah,_ the other half of him spitefully bit back, _and I wanted her. But we don't get what we want._

As he set aside this inner debate to return to standing guard, though, he started wondering over this. What we want and what we need are two different things. He refused to acknowledge this thought, but he knew deep down Omega was far from what he needed.

_August 12, 2184…_

Well, somehow he'd done it. He'd made it a year without Terra.

And the truth was, deep down, the loss still hadn't healed at all.

That was the thing about losing a mate. You found a way to handle the pain, but it never really went away. He'd always be wondering what might have happened between them. He'd always miss her like a part of himself had died. He wouldn't admit it, but everything he'd been doing as Archangel had only been a distraction to keep the pain at bay.

The irony. Terra had recovered from losing her whole family because she'd had him and Solana. But he couldn't recover from losing his mate unless he had her. He'd been trying to find support with his team here, but it wasn't like the squad on the _Normandy_, especially since he didn't have the heart to tell them who he really was.

He'd started dreaming about her again. For an hour, he'd believed he was once again sleeping beside her in the _Normandy_ captain's cabin, content, at peace, in love. Then, for a terrifying ten seconds, he'd believed the alarms were going off again and she wasn't waking up. Then he'd woken up himself and remembered she wasn't even there. And never would be.

As he recovered from that rude awakening, grateful he was the only one in the base at the moment, he eventually resorted to scrolling through his pictures of her, including all the ones she'd taken of the two of them together during their visits on the Citadel and even the visit to Earth she'd convinced him to take with her. Even now, looking at them made him smile longingly, made him wish they could have stayed together rather than letting their shared need to protect the innocent lead them in different directions. They should have never been away from each other. They were best together. They _belonged_ together.

They were mates. Even before they knew it.

Spirits, what was he going to do without her?

He finally heard other people in the building and remembered how he had decided to answer that question. He was doing what no one else would, protecting the people who had no protection without him. He was Archangel.

He smirked to think of how she would react to hearing him called that.

He couldn't put her out of his mind completely, but he could shelve his regrets for later as he started preparing to move out for the next assault. After successfully disrupting the Eclipse, they had gone after the Blood Pack. Today, they stepped up to running interference against the Blue Suns. It wouldn't be easy, the Blue Suns were likely the most efficient and well-guarded of the three, but it had to be done. The Blue Suns were the ones behind half the criminal activity in the Terminus Systems and most of the extortion rackets on Omega. It was time someone brought them down a peg.

Or completely.

It was risky, but they were ready. Interrupting a smuggling deal wasn't so different from disrupting one of the Eclipse drug shipments, after all, so if they could still find a good position and get the drop on their targets, they'd be able to pull this off. Fortunately for them, they'd be interrupting it at the docks themselves rather than in the Gozu District where the Blue Suns had all the power. They just had to be quick and careful.

While the team was taking up position, Garrus started lining up shots, aiming down his sights at the leader of the Blue Suns unit dispatched for this job.

"Let's move it, people," the leader told his men, "We don't wanna risk this 'Archangel' getting cocky and trying to mess with this."

Garrus couldn't help but smirk smugly to himself. He had a reputation and they were already worried he'd be a problem for them. It was kind of flattering.

Once he had the signal the whole team was ready, it was just a matter of waiting for the right moment. The second he gave it, everything kicked off. The Blue Suns meant business and were ready for them. They still got the drop on them, but instead of sending the surprised mercenaries charging into a kill-zone, they had to take cover as a genuine firefight broke out. Garrus was in his element, a well-concealed perch with clear sights on all of the combatants, and made sure to snipe a few targets while he was organizing the team's efforts. Sensat blew an explosive charge that took down five in one go, Weaver followed all of Garrus' headshots with volleys of his own, Sidonis took a hit but Melenis quickly covered him. It may not have gone as smoothly as their other operations, but it was still going in their favor.

For about five minutes.

One of the Blue Suns' snipers was finally able to track where the headshots were coming from and catch sight of Archangel himself. Said sniper responded by lobbing a grenade at his vantage point to draw him out for a kill shot.

Luckily for Garrus, it was only a flash-bang. Unluckily for him, he didn't see it coming in time to duck. Getting hit with a flash-bang in the first place was disorienting and unpleasant. Getting hit in the head by it right as it went off was enough to make the unfortunate receiver want to die.

He hit the deck, somehow managing not to drop his rifle off the ledge. As he lie there, his ears ringing and his eyes blinded, he felt like he genuinely was dying. It didn't bother him, though. What bothered him was the fact that it didn't bother him. Was he really that desperate to see Terra again that he would be willing to give up?

…yes. He wanted her back.

"Garrus…"

He knew he was imagining her voice through the white noise. He even knew he was imagining that he was seeing her kneeling down beside him when he opened his eyes to nothing but solid light. But he didn't care. He was too happy to see her bright blue eyes gleaming at him.

She smiled when she saw him looking at her. "Garrus…" She reached out for him, laying her hand on his face.

He could feel her fingers on his plates, as gentle and caring as they were strong and precise. Maybe he wasn't imagining it. Maybe he was hallucinating. He had just been hit on the head pretty hard. He still didn't care, though. It was the first time in a year he'd felt whole.

She sighed as she drew closer. "Garrus, you have to move."

"I…what?"

_"Garrus! Get out of there!"_

He snapped out of it when he realized what he was really hearing through the ringing in his ears. Sidonis on the COMM. Trying to warn him. About what? He still couldn't—

He blinked a few times to prompt his vision to fade back into focus. It didn't get all the way back into full clarity just yet, but he knew a gun when he saw one. He let instinct drive him, rolling out of the way of the shot. He got a hold of his rifle when he did, struggling to get a hold of his motor functions while he was at it. The shot going off directly over him did nothing for his recovering hearing, but his vision was coming back enough that he could see the Blue Suns mercenary that had scrambled up here to take him out. Once he could see that, he fought back. He didn't have enough faith in his depth perception just yet to pull off a gunshot (especially not close range with a sniper rifle), so he relied on brute force, grabbing hold of his opponent's wrist and twisting it to make him drop the gun as he holstered his own. Now it was a straight-up fistfight. That Garrus knew he could handle. All he had to do was block a few attacks, deliver a couple of his own, and then bait his opponent into swinging for him. When this last step came, he sidestepped and knocked said opponent off balance, sending them tumbling over the ledge and falling 20 feet. Problem solved.

Garrus quickly shook off as much of the lasting effects of the flash-bang as he could. Once he was clear enough, he checked on the team's progress. Only a few mercs left standing. It'd be over soon. He sighed with relief before stepping back to finish recovering and take account of himself. Visor still in place, rifle intact, Terra's drawing still in his pocket. Somehow, they'd pulled it off.

So why did he still feel disappointed?

When he finally had his senses back under his own control, he started making his way down from his perch to meet up with his team. As usual, they were ecstatic to deal such a major blow to one of the most powerful gangs on Omega. As usual, he played the part of the leader, checking injuries, cautioning them to stay on alert until they were back at the base, extolling their efforts. As usual, they returned to planning their next move almost immediately.

Garrus was torn over all of it. Half of him was sinking back into Archangel mode, ready to head back into another fight as soon as possible to air out this inner turmoil. The other half couldn't stop wishing he'd stayed lost in that dream of Terra.


	33. How Angels Fall

Chapter 33: How Angels Fall

Just as all wanderers must go on  
Just as the darkest comes before dawn  
The brightest comes before dusk  
All who rise might touch the sky  
But one day when they reach to fly  
Their wings may turn to dust

_November 25, 2184…_

Gun smuggling was usually a Blue Suns operation, so Garrus was surprised the mercs hadn't already taken out Gus Williams for moving in on their business. Maybe they knew Archangel would do it for them and distract himself from some of their jobs for once. Or maybe they were hoping the smuggler would take out some of the vigilantes giving them so much heartache. If so, they were mistaken, even if not as vastly as Garrus would've liked.

The smuggler did put up a fight and did have a crew to back him up, all carrying the weapons he'd brought on the station, all guarding weapons that'd be going out. It didn't go as smoothly as most of Archangel's assaults, resulting in a shootout. A shootout Archangel and his team were winning when Butler took a shot in the shoulder and hit the deck bleeding. Garrus responded with startling speed and accuracy, sniping down all their opponents but Williams himself, who immediately fled into his den.

"I'm going in," Garrus told his team, "Watch my back."

"Wait," Butler called, trying to pull himself up, "I'll go with you."

"No. You're injured. Weaver, give him a hand."

"It's not serious, Garrus, I can still fight!"

Garrus looked to him, making it clear in his eyes how serious he was. "I'm not risking it."

Butler got the message. He still wasn't happy, but he went along with it. Partly because he could see the real reason why Garrus was saying no, even if the turian didn't see it himself.

Garrus paid no attention to the response, already hurrying after his target. To the smuggler's credit, he knew how to arrange his own defenses, but Garrus was too good for them, hacking his way through them all. Then it was just a matter of hacking through the door the smuggler had sealed himself behind. He was met with a gunshot, but he was ready for it, shields catching the damage so he could dive in and disarm the shooter. "Nice try."

"You…" the smuggler said, "…you're that Archangel guy everyone's talking about, right?"

Garrus ignored him, looking down at the smuggled gun he'd just snatched from his target's hand.

"We can work this out. I've got credits. Just tell me what you want—"

Garrus growled when he heard that, arming the weapon. "I don't negotiate." And firing it into its owner's head. As he turned to go, he dismantled the gun and tossed it, making a note to come back and destroy the others.

That same small part of him was debating his actions (_Terra would have negotiated.—No, she wouldn't have, she had integrity.—She also wanted to avoid bloodshed whenever possible._), but he had long since learned to tune it out.

_December 14, 2184…_

The team had put their plans for the gangs on hold when they'd heard someone was sabotaging station systems, even going so far as to cut power or life support to entire districts. Their tech expert was skilled enough to simply run a few searches and find out who was behind it all. Har Urek. Once they had the name, it was easy enough to track down the saboteur himself.

For a volus, he gave them a good chase. He slowed them down by sabotaging their guns every time they had a chance to fire on him, setting pipes to burst or lights to blow in their path, and, lastly, the ever so effective tactic of taking a hostage. The team had decided before it even formed not to risk civilian casualties, so proceeding from here was risky.

But Garrus saw a way around it. He signaled the others to cover him while he put his hands behind his back to hide his omni-tool and start a sabotage of his own.

The volus, for all his technical knowledge, couldn't put up enough defenses on his own suit to keep Garrus out. He didn't even notice his air filter had been hijacked before he started struggling to breathe. While his vigilante opponents got the hostage free, the saboteur began checking his own systems for a way to reboot before he suffocated. He didn't find one in time. He fell dead within a minute while Garrus looked on and walked away.

He saw it as poetic justice. The saboteur had been sabotaged, had died the same way as all the people he'd killed. But when he looked back on it later, he couldn't help but notice that it was the same type of "poetic justice" Terra had once tried to steer him away from, that the death he'd enabled was the same kind she had also suffered. He'd acted out of spite where he couldn't act out of regret and he didn't even care anymore.

When had he gone from being lost and heartbroken to being angry at the world?

_January 30, 2185…_

Even with Eclipse in operation, Omega's red sand usage would have been halved months ago if not for Thralog Mirki'it, a batarian who'd been dealing to the slums. He kept dealing at the same rate, so it was likely he didn't realize he was on Archangel's hit list.

He was about to.

Mierin played the bait to draw him out, doing so remarkably well until the dealer finally revealed himself with a pouch of his product. Once they all had eyes on him, it was just a matter of pinning him down long enough for one of them to get a kill shot. He was a slippery batarian, but not so much that Archangel couldn't catch him. While the team was rounding up all the supply to torch it, Garrus was tossing Thralog into a wall and drawing his gun to finish this. The batarian reacted faster than Garrus expected, kicking the gun out of his hand and jumping to tackle him. Garrus ducked under the attack, using his assailant's momentum against him to throw him onto the ground. Then, in lieu of a gun, he snatched the pouch from the batarian's pack and poured the contents onto all four of his eyes. The result was grisly, but Garrus didn't have to watch. He just had to take his gun back and walk away.

"What'd you do?" Mierin asked when they heard their target's screams dying down behind them.

"Gave him a taste of his own medicine," Garrus retorted, yet again pushing back the piece of his mind that was cringing at how callously he had acted and how unflinchingly he had owned it.

_February 10, 2185…_

Of all the varieties of criminal Omega had to offer, Garrus hated the slavers the worst. None of the team asked why, thankfully, but it was an unspoken rule that any plans to disrupt the gangs would go on hold if they had the location of a slaving operation they could shut down. So when he caught the trail of Kron Harga while the team wasn't even in the base, he didn't waste time waiting on them. He just geared up and went himself.

He caught the scum at his lair. He was in position to simply snipe him down, but the slaver spotted him before he could take the shot. Fine. He preferred plan B anyway. Plan B involved hacking into the slaver's security and letting it all down at once to deny him his "supply." It also involved waiting until the slaver in question started attempting to chase down his cargo and then shooting him in the foot so he couldn't run. Then the other foot just to make sure. Then every other extremity for good measure.

Harga managed to stand up and face him down. "I'll…kill you…for this!"

Garrus answered with a rifle butt to the face. He'd never done that so hard he heard his target's skull crack. He must really hate this guy.

Harga stayed down this time, in too much pain to even keep taunting him.

But he might as well have. Just looking at him was making Garrus seethe with a fury he hadn't known he was capable of having. One that drew him to open fire again, straight into every last one of his target's primary organs. The slaver tried to crawl away as he bled out, though, and Garrus drew the line at letting this scum get away. So when he saw that his target was crawling right towards an explosive crate, he took extreme measures. "And I'll kill you for them." Then he popped the thermal clip from his gun and, as he turned to walk away, tossed it into the crate. He didn't bother looking back as the slaver screamed and burned.

Despite the severity of his methods, there was no inner turmoil over this one. He knew exactly what he'd done. He didn't care what Terra would've thought. He just cared that slavers had ruined her life and every last one of them had to pay. And if it gave him a vector to cut loose all that despair and rage inside him, even better.

_March 9, 2185…_

Somewhere along the way, the credits had started piling up. Suddenly, the team was not just a bunch of vigilantes invading the gangs' operations but an actual squad with resources. This opened the door for some paths that had been closed to them if only they could agree on which path to take. Some members of the team were even offering the idea that they could use all these funds to get their families off of Omega and start over. "Quit while we're ahead," they said without saying it.

But Garrus wouldn't hear it. They thought there was a life after the fighting? When he'd tried to find one, it'd been snatched away from him in the cruelest way possible. They couldn't just sit by while those gangs slowly reformed and gradually infested Omega all over again. It wouldn't stay there forever. It'd spread through the galaxy, reaching as far as the Citadel, undoing everything she'd—!

He cut off that thought. Everything he'd done, _he'd_ done. _She_ had…had…huh. All this time and it was still about honoring her memory. What would she have done now?

She would've given it up for him. But without her, he couldn't do the same.

"No," he finally stood up, "We can use this to hit the parts of the station that were out of our reach before."

Sidonis was the first to voice his apprehension. "Look, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but—"

"But nothing. We can go after the gang leaders directly, take them out of the equation entirely."

"That's incredibly risky, Garrus."

"Not as much as if we did nothing. We've come too far to turn back now. I'm not letting them terrorize these people any more. If you've got a problem with that, nothing's stopping you from leaving. I'll take them on myself if I have to." He said it like that was the end of it, even left the room. He didn't seem to even realize that, though they might not really know him, they knew him well enough to know what he really thought.

There was no dissension, no doubt. None of them left. Their reasons for sticking around were their own—commitment, loyalty, determination, worry over what would happen if Garrus lived up to his word—but the result was unanimous. Archangel was taking the fight straight to the top.

And they were following him there.

_July 22, 2185…_

Archangel had laid his claim on Omega. He had spread his influence through the entire Kima District. Now he was spending every waking hour on the hunt. When the team was with him, they operated as normal, pressing deeper and deeper into the gangs' jobs until the mercenaries could barely function on the station. When he was alone, sometimes sending the team after the regular criminals as a diversion, he went on the prowl and dove in for the kill. In the past week, he'd started pushing so hard the gangs were running scared.

Five days ago, he'd tailed the krogan in charge of the Blood Pack, Garm, until he caught him alone. Once the vorcha were clear, Garrus waited for the krogan to let his guard down. Then he pounced. He was able to get in five good shots before Garm roared with fury and retaliated. Dodging those shotgun blasts and charges was difficult, but Garrus saw it as agility practice. The fight seemed to go on for an hour. He kept attempting to chain shots on the krogan's vital organs, but he regenerated too fast for it to do any real damage (faster than should've been possible, the freak of nature). Eventually, Garm's backup showed and Garrus had to change tactics. He thought he could pick them off slowly if he kited them around the station for a while, but it wasn't that simple. He finally had to pull out while he could, too tight an escape to even manage a few headshots on the way out. Garm got away, furious and vengeful, but he knew what he was up against now and his ire had been drawn away from the station's civilians.

Three days later, Garrus had tried again with the batarian in charge of the Blue Suns, Tarak. He'd managed to put his tech skills to use finding out where Tarak lived. At the end of the day, he found a perch overlooking the batarian's home and readied his sniper rifle for a quick and clean headshot. He didn't hesitate to take the shot, but all he hit was shields. The batarian reacted amazingly quickly, drawing a weapon of his own and firing back. Garrus had to duck back and holster his rifle, but he wasn't giving up that easily. When the shots stopped coming, indicating his target thought he'd run for it when the first shot hadn't done the trick, he dove across and leaped straight into the room. The batarian was too startled to even take aim, giving Garrus a chance to disarm him. He had the advantage in the resulting fistfight and even got so far as to pin Tarak in a stranglehold before more mercs arrived than he was prepared to take on at once by himself. He barely got out, but he managed it. He hadn't managed taking Tarak down, but he had definitely set the batarian on edge. He'd already been paranoid. Now he would be afraid.

Today, the whole team was behind him for an assault on an Eclipse transport. It was full of tainted eezo—apparently, half the goods Garrus had seized in C-Sec came from Omega's Eclipse operations—but it wasn't so different from the other shipments they'd intercepted in the past. Go in, wipe everything out, get away before reinforcements materialized.

Eclipse had started posting guards on likely points for Archangel and his team to position themselves, but it did nothing. They still moved in, took the guards out quietly, and waited for the right time. When that right time came, they opened fire. The Eclipse mercs had evidently been preparing for exactly this occurrence, because they all took cover the second the bullets started flying and began firing back. Still, they barely slowed the vigilantes down. In a matter of minutes, the leader of the mercenary squadron was the last one standing. They should have known he wouldn't go down as easily.

"Back off!" the salarian shouted, holding up what looked to be a detonator, "Or I'll pump this into the air filters in three districts!"

Sidonis ducked down. "Think he's bluffing?"

Garrus sneered at the salarian. "Doesn't matter." He took aim and fired.

The shot threw the detonator out of the salarian's hand. Before he could recover, Garrus took aim a second time and shot him in the head.

Problem solved.

They moved fast, destroying the shipment and clearing out. The Eclipse would take a serious blow from this one. They even found out later that the salarian Garrus had taken down was the top lieutenant of the Eclipse leader, Jaroth. The team was convinced this was one of their biggest successes yet, that the Eclipse might never recover from this.

All Garrus noticed was that Jaroth himself was nowhere to be seen. The way he saw it, he was 0 for 3. But all three would have it out for him, and when they each tried to cash in, he'd be ready to take them down for good.

At least, that's what he thought. He had no way of knowing what they'd really do.

_August 12, 2185…_

Nearly a month after he started drawing them out and the gang leaders were still out of sight. The team was still certain this meant they were finally on the verge of winning, but deep down, they weren't so sure it was ever going to be that simple. While the rest of the team was coming back from an assault on a Blue Suns unit and Sidonis was chasing down stragglers, Garrus was sitting on a ledge in the outskirts of the Kima District, watching the station around him as he tended his rifle.

It may have felt like a run of success stories, but they hadn't changed anything at all. Omega was as broken as ever. Vorcha scrabbling in every nook and cranny, scavengers in the streets, every civilian living in poverty and fear. He was starting to think there was no changing it. That thought was unspeakable, but he couldn't shake it. No matter how much he wanted to believe he hadn't been fighting in vain. All the struggling and the chaos for _two years_—

Wait.

It was only now he thought to check the date that he realized. It had now officially been two years since the crash. Two years since he lost his best friend, his mate, his source of light. Two years without Terra Shepard.

What would she think if she saw him now?

He shook away the wonderings. "What ifs" were pointless, he told himself. Though that was maybe because he didn't want to admit what the answer was or fall into the pit of wondering where he would be if she was still alive. He even found himself fighting the urge to pull her drawing out of his pocket again. Every time he looked at it, it brought the pain back, and Archangel was no good to anyone if Garrus was breaking down mourning his human. Instead, he focused on checking his gear, every glance at the station around him now punctuated not with pondering of if his actions were futile but with pondering of if there was any place in this galaxy where they wouldn't be.

_"Garrus?"_

He answered his COMM. "What is it, Sidonis?"

_"Garm and his Blood Pack have me pinned down. I could use a hand."_

It occurred to him he should ask some of the others to go with him, but he dismissed it. There might not be time, and he didn't mind going it solo for a little longer. "On my way." So he readied his rifle and raced for the coordinates Sidonis sent him.

But when he arrived, there was no one there. This didn't make sense. Sidonis had definitely sounded panicked—his main tone did a good job of hiding it, but his sub-vocals couldn't lie, not to another turian. So where was he? Was the fight already over and he'd lost? Had he sent the wrong coordinates? Garrus tried pinging Sidonis' COMM for a location, but it was inactive. That alone was not a good sign. Whatever action had to be taken, though, he couldn't do it from here. So he headed back to have their tech expert track Sidonis down for him. Still, there was something about this whole situation that was gnawing at his old detective instincts. It bothered him up until he returned to the base. The second he got there, the dread of _Something is really wrong here_ heightened inside him. He didn't know why until it was too late.

Boom.


	34. Lazarus

Chapter 34: Lazarus

Death is but a sleep  
With dreams we cannot see  
When we at last awaken  
What wonders might there be?

"…there…on the monitor…something's wrong…"

…weak…dark…quiet…

"…she's reacting to outside stimuli…showing an awareness of her surroundings…"

…eyes opening slowly…lights dim and bright at once…

"…Miranda…I think she's waking up…"

…someone there…something wrong…

"…she's not ready, Wilson…give her the sedative…"

…have to move. Senses clearing. Motion back in control. Get up. _Get up_.

"Shepard, if you can hear me, just lie still. Try to stay calm."

Who had ever calmed down when they heard _that_? She struggled, trying to fight whatever was keeping her down. Where was she? Who were these people? How did she get here?

"Stats climbing into the red zone. It's not working!"

Heart pounding. Everything hurt. What was going on?!

"Another dose. Now!"

She kept fighting. She had to—

Something cold bit into her. She felt her strength leave. Slowly, the darkness crept in again…

"…heart rate dropping…that was too close…we almost lost her…"

"…I told you your estimates were off…run the numbers again…"

…weak…quiet…drifting away…

…

…

…

_"Wake up, commander!"_

Terra opened her eyes as everything around her shook. It took a moment for her senses to clear, but they did. As soon as she could, she took account of her surroundings. She was in some kind of medical bay. She could hear explosions in the distance. What was going on? She started taking account of her motor functions, finding her body responding but weakened.

_"Shepard, your scars aren't healed, but you need to get out of that bed now! This facility is under attack!"_

The voice on her COMM sounded familiar, but she didn't recognize it. Either way, it was right she had to get moving, so she pulled herself upright. Just doing that much hurt. She groaned, clutching her side and curling up as her muscles flared with pain at the slightest exertion. You'd think she hadn't used them in months.

…wait…

Another explosion threw that thought from her mind. She could see fire out the windows. She had to hurry and get out of here. Fighting the pain, she struggled to her feet. She almost immediately lost her balance and fell to her knees. She couldn't stand to be weak like this. She kept fighting it, using the bed she'd just stumbled out of as a brace to regain her footing. Once she was back up, it was a matter of putting one foot in front of the other to move. That was a struggle in itself, but she managed well enough to get moving.

_"Your gear is in a locker on the far side of the room. You need to hurry."_

Her gear. Right. She had to be ready to fight. She quickly pulled herself together, using the bed to keep her balance until she had walking back under control, and made her way over to the locker in question. When she got there, she took a moment to lean on it, catch her breath, and regain her bearings. Then she pulled the doors open to check her gear. N7 armor, perfectly intact somehow. A Predator pistol she could work with until she had her rifle and her shotgun back. And _her necklace_. She lunged to grab the necklace and latch it back on. She _never_ took it off, so how did it even get…?

…oh…oh no. The _Normandy_. She'd fallen out of the ship. It was starting to get clearer, slowly, like a distant dream she was straining to make sense of. She didn't know how she had survived, but she remembered a lot of heat and force. She was suddenly _extremely_ thankful that her necklace was made out of durable Palaven metals and unbreakable Earth sapphires. She couldn't bear it if she lost it.

Once her necklace was back on and she was breathing a bit easier, Terra grabbed the armor and started putting it on. Back in N7 armor, she started to feel more like herself again, like she was recovered and ready for anything. So she checked her shields, braced for a firefight, and drew the pistol to—

Hold on. She checked the chamber on the pistol and started glaring at the air where she couldn't glare at the voice over her COMM. "This pistol doesn't have a thermal clip!"

_"It's a med bay! We'll find you some ammo in… Shepard, get down!"_

She knew better than to argue with that, ducking down behind the nearest cover just before the doors to the med bay burst open.

_"It's clear for now. You've gotta get moving."_

She didn't know how this voice knew what was going on, but since there was no one else around to guide her and she didn't know her own way around this place, she figured she might as well go along with it. So she got moving. She had her maneuverability back, her muscles back under her control, so it was just a matter of figuring out what she was up again.

That didn't take long. As soon as she was past the door, she saw the remains of a mech on the floor. She was willing to bet there were a lot more running around. Not the best circumstances to wake up to, but the broken mech had dropped a pistol with one thermal clip left in it, so at least she knew she could defend herself for now.

As usual, her hunch was correct. In the very next room, she encountered a handful of mechs. She had to stay low and time her shots to avoid getting hit, not to mention keep to headshots while her ammo supply was limited, but, also per usual, she had no trouble taking them down. She moved fast, salvaging clips from the remains as she made her way through to the next room. The more she moved through the station, the more she could see how bad things were going. These mechs had torn the whole place apart. If she didn't have someone talking in her ear, she'd wonder how anyone had survived it. Frankly, she was amazed they hadn't made it to the med bay she'd woken up in. Someone must have been looking out for her while she was out.

When she reached a security checkpoint and managed to salvage some extra thermal clips, she started to relax that she could fight as she normally did, though she still missed her trusty sniper rifle. But there was something else going on here. She couldn't access the terminals, and she was in too much of a hurry right now to really try, but she could see enough to know there was more to this place than she realized. Medical scans, surgical records, financial reports in the billions—she wished she had Garrus' detective skills to put it all together.

Frankly, she wished she had Garrus. Where was he by now?

She shook it off for now. Too much at once, worry about questions later. She hurried down the hall to the next room, grabbing a spare weapon a dead guard had dropped (and fighting the urge to quip "Now I have a grenade launcher, ho, ho, ho."). She had to run full speed to get through some fire from a burst pipe, her shields just barely catching it, and she could already hear gunfire in the next room. This place was falling apart. She had to move.

_"You're doing great, Shepard," the voice came back, "Just get to the—"_

Terra slowed when she heard static on her COMM. "Are you there?"

_"Shepard—! —do you read me—? —I'm losing—"_ The signal cut.

Terra groaned. There went her guide. She was going to have to hope the way out wasn't far. She opened the next door.

She was met with a hail of gunfire from across the way, forcing her to take cover.

"Get back!" someone called.

She looked in confusion to see who was there, finding a soldier crouched behind a wall.

He caught sight of her just as easily. "Wait…_Shepard_?"

Well, he recognized her and he wasn't dead, so he probably had some answers for her. She waited for a lull in the shots to duck down from the corner to the wall.

"It is you," he said when she rolled in, "Things must really be bad if Miranda's got you running around."

Miranda. That must be the voice on the COMM that just dropped. She filed the information away before devoting her full attention to the soldier himself. "Who are you? What's going on?"

"Right. Sorry. My name's Jacob Taylor. I've been stationed here for—"

"Hostiles detected," a mechanized voice sounded from across the divide just before another volley of gunfire came flying their way.

Jacob quickly ducked down farther, drawing Terra to follow cautiously. "Maybe we should clear the room before playing 20 Questions."

"Not so fast," Terra snapped, "I've been running around this place blind, no idea where I am or what's going on, and everyone's telling me what to do. I want answers. _Now_."

He couldn't exactly argue with that. "Fair enough," he shrugged, "I'll give you the quick version. Your ship was destroyed by an unknown attacker. You were killed. Everyone on this station has been spending the last two years bringing you back."

…she was suddenly wishing she had waited for more than the quick version. She was _dead_? For TWO YEARS?! It was all coming back to her now. The attack. The evacuation. The crash. The _Normandy_ was gone. The crew…oh, spirits, did anyone else make it? "That's…_how_…?!"

Jacob ducked a shot again. "Tell you what. Maybe we can clear this up when we're not getting shot at."

Right. "Right. Yeah. Let's take them down." She readied her pistol again.

Jacob was a biotic and not a bad shot. Terra was the best shot in 1000 light-years. The mechs were relentless, but it didn't do them any good. They went down like bowling pins.

Jacob took a moment to catch his breath as they holstered their guns. "We'd better get moving before more come by."

"Or you could clear a few things up for me," Terra immediately cut in, "I'm sure you'll forgive me being a bit curious since I've never been _dead_ before!"

He flinched. "Yeah, I get that. What do you wanna know?"

"What _don't_ I wanna know? I've been gone for _two years_? What happened to me?!"

"You got thrown from the ship when it crashed. You ran out of air, fell to the Alchera surface. When I first saw you, it…wasn't a pretty sight. Anyone else would've put you in a coffin then and there, but the Lazarus Project was different. Miranda, Wilson, all the best scientists, the best technology money could buy—they refused to give up on you. And now here you are."

Yes, here she was. But the fact remained that she hadn't been for a long time. It was only now she realized this that she realized how different she felt. The same, but different. It wasn't right. "Technology…like cybernetics? …like cloning?"

"Cybernetics. A lot of them. You're not a clone. They wanted you back exactly the way you were."

That much she appreciated. It didn't put her worries at ease just yet, but she could set them aside to address the other concern plaguing the forefront of her mind: "The _Normandy_. Is it…?"

He gave a sympathetic look. "Gone. I'm sorry."

"And the crew? Did everyone else make it out?"

"Most everyone. A few of the servicemen on the lower decks didn't make it to the pods in time. Navigator Pressly was killed by an explosion. But everyone else made it, even the non-Alliance crew."

Even the non-Alliance crew. Garrus and Liara. "Do you know where they are? I need to contact them, let them know I'm OK."

"Sorry, I don't know. It's been two years, they moved on. Some of them even left the Alliance, could be anywhere."

"They were my crew," she asserted, though her mind countered that they were _family_, "They'd come back for me."

"I'm sure they would. But I still don't know how to contact them. Miranda might know if we can reach her."

Miranda. The voice on her COMM. "Right. Right, she contacted me, got me out of the med bay."

"She's the one behind the project. Her main concern is getting you out of here alive. Do you know where she was?"

She shook her head. "She dropped out of contact right before I stumbled into you."

He seemed concerned, but he nodded. "She'll make it. She's made it out of worse than this."

"Speaking of which, I don't suppose you know what this attack is about."

He scoffed. "No, I really don't. I was just heading down for some shut-eye, then _BAM_! Every mech in the place powered up and started shooting at us. Had to be an inside job, though. You need top level clearance to even access the mechs."

_"Can anyone hear me out there?" a voice suddenly came over Jacob's COMM, "Hello?!"_

Jacob reacted, turning on his COMM. "Wilson! Is that you?"

_"Jacob! Where are you?"_

"Outside the med bay with Shepard."

_"Shepard's alive? What…never mind. You have to get her out of there _now_."_

"Roger that, Wilson. Stay on this frequency."

Terra readied her pistol. She still had questions, but they could wait until they got off this station. "Let's go get him."

Jacob nodded and followed her through the next room.

And, almost immediately, the next bunch of mechs came online to start shooting at them.

"Wilson!" Jacob snapped into his COMM as they took cover, "This room is crawling with mechs!"

_"The whole station's crawling with mechs! Just take them out!"_

Terra sneered. Something wasn't right here. The entire time she was shooting down the mechs to clear their path, she was trying to figure out just what it was about this situation that was so particularly wrong it would set off her instincts like this.

"Wilson," Jacob said when they were clear, "find us another route through. Preferably one that doesn't lead straight into an enemy squad!"

His answer came in the form of a terrified scream.

"Wilson! What's going on?"

_"They found me! Server room B!"_

Jacob started racing ahead to show Terra the path there. "We're on our way, just hold on!"

They hurried down the halls, only stopping for ammo as they shot every mech they passed without even slowing down. When they finally arrived at the server room, they found a human scientist curled up on the floor with a bullet wound in his leg.

"Wilson," Jacob addressed the scientist as he knelt down to check the wound.

Terra looked around briefly, catching sight of a first aid station nearby. She rushed over to grab the medi-gel from it and then tossed one of the packs to Jacob.

"I thought I could shut down the mechs from here," Wilson explained as the medi-gel started patching up his wound, "They caught up to me before I could."

"We didn't ask what you were doing here," Jacob retorted even as he helped the scientist backed to his feet, "Why do you even have security mech clearance? You were in the bio wing."

"Weren't you listening? I was trying to fix this. Besides, I was shot. How do you explain that?"

Terra all but rolled her eyes. _Covering your tracks, brainless. Way to make yourself look even more suspicious._ She was pretty sure she knew who was setting off her instincts now, but it was no time to be assigning blame. "We need to get out of here. We'll worry about who's behind it all later."

No sooner had she said it than the door across the room opened to let in a squad of mechs.

She didn't even look before firing a pistol shot into an explosive crate by the door, taking all the mechs out at once as the soldier and the scientist looked at her in amazement. "Now let's find Miranda and go."

"OK," Jacob said hesitantly, "but this is getting tense."

"Jacob, I wouldn't—" Wilson started.

"She's clearly expecting a shot in the back any second. We have to tell her."

Or maybe Wilson wasn't the only one setting her off. Terra quickly turned to give Jacob a wary glance. "Tell me what?"

Jacob sighed. "We work for Cerberus."

That did it. "On second thought, you can find your own way out." She promptly turned her back on them both and started walking off.

Jacob rushed to catch up to her before she left the room. "Shepard, wait—!"

"Don't bother!" she snapped, all her restraint going into not outright pulling her gun on him, "I heard enough about what your little splinter group gets up to when I was hunting Saren!"

"You don't know the whole story! The Alliance wrote you off, they're wanting everyone to believe it's over, but we all know it's not! Look, once we're out of here, we can take you to talk to the Illusive Man. He's the one in charge, he can give you answers."

"I don't care what he has to say. If you brought me back to join your little terrorist group, you might as well toss me off the station yourself right now."

"Fine!" Jacob snapped back before she could start storming off again, "We can settle this after we get to the shuttles!"

She went along with it for now, but as far as she was concerned, it was already settled. Cerberus liked to paint itself as fighting for humanity. She knew enough to see it for what it really was: human supremacy. They could claim to have brought her back because they cared, but if Garrus had been the one caught in the crash, they wouldn't have lifted a finger to save him. So she wasn't doing a thing for them, no matter what they said.

All through the fight through the docking bay, she was watching Jacob and Wilson with suspicion and spite. Even when the last of the mechs were down and they were focused on racing to the shuttles, she was expecting something else to go wrong. Or maybe hoping something would. Either way, they made it and Wilson opened the door.

To reveal a dark-haired human woman on the other side.

Wilson jumped. "Miranda! But you were—!"

She didn't bother letting him finish before drawing a gun and shooting him down. "Dead?"

"What are you doing?!" Jacob demanded.

"My job," she answered bluntly as she holstered her pistol, "Wilson betrayed us all."

Terra scoffed. "I knew it."

Miranda smirked. "Good instincts." She turned to face Terra. "Good to see you're alright, Shepard. Come on, we'd better take you to speak with my boss."

"You mean the 'Illusive Man'?" Terra countered, folding her arms, "I already know you work for Cerberus."

Miranda sighed. "Ah, Jacob. I should've known your conscience would get the better of you."

Jacob shrugged. "Lying to the commander doesn't seem like the best way to get her to help our cause."

Terra did roll her eyes now. _Your incredibly racist cause? No, why would I not want to help that?_

"Well," Miranda said, "since we're getting everything out in the open, is there anything else you want to hear, commander?"

She withheld the impulse to retort _From you? No thanks._ "We should do our talking on the shuttle. I've had enough of this station to last a lifetime."

"Or two, in your case. Come on."

As they flew off the station to another, Terra looked out the window. Seeing the stars again was calming, though she wondered if she'd ever see them the same way again, but when her eyes unfocused enough to catch sight of her reflection for the first time, all that calmness faded away. Her face was riddled with scars, the cybernetics planted beneath them giving an eerie red glow to them all. Though it wasn't so bad she couldn't stand to look at it, she still hoped they would fade. Her hair was also wrong, shorter than usual and hanging loose, but she could fix that easily enough. So instead of acknowledging the two operatives who were on the shuttle with her, she started tying her hair into a loose ponytail over her left shoulder and smoothing her bangs over her right eye.

"While we're on our way," Miranda spoke up, "we should be testing your memory. Making sure nothing was lost in the reconstruction."

Terra simply checked her reflection again to make sure her signature style was back in place, as if no one had said a word.

"Commander!"

She snarled at the operative out of the corner of her eye. "You wanna check my memory? You have my service record up and everything? Why don't you start by checking where it begins? Why don't you just see where I'm from and who my family is?"

Miranda sighed, clearly fighting exasperation. "I told him she wasn't going to go along with this…"

"She's just as stubborn as you are, Miranda," Jacob smirked, "And don't worry, her memory's intact. And I can vouch for her combat skills personally."

"Fine. But I hope you realize, commander, that some things are more important than our personal convictions."

Terra looked at her now. "That much we can agree on."

The rest of the shuttle ride was quiet. When they finally arrived at their destination, Miranda pointed Terra to a COMM room. Terra was already tense and distrusting before she even walked in, never mind when she saw there was no one there and a holographic COMM connected her remotely instead.

On the other end of the connection, a man sat in a chair, watching her appear. "Commander Shepard."

"Illusive Man," she surmised, folding her arms at him, "I thought we'd be meeting face to face."

"A necessary precaution."

She scoffed. If he was going to go to all the trouble of bringing her back, the least he could do was trust she wouldn't immediately shoot him no matter how much she wanted to. He was really committed to that name.

"You know as well as I do what's out there. The single greatest threat mankind has ever faced."

"I assume you're referring to the Reapers."

"Yes. It's good to see your memory and intuition are both intact. How are you feeling?"

"Like I'm stuck with the last person in this galaxy I wanted to talk to."

He shook his head, standing up to face her properly. "I would save your apprehensions for after you hear me out."

"And why would I want to do that?"

"Because while you were…_sleeping_, the Reapers have been busy."

That got her attention. She'd cut them off. They couldn't be back, not that quickly. "What do you mean?"

"Entire colonies have been going missing. Human colonies."

She couldn't tell if it was horror or bereavement she was suddenly struck with. How…? "How do you lose entire colonies?!"

"That's what we've been trying to figure out. Everything will seem fine, the colony will suddenly go dark, then the first to inspect it find the entire colony empty."

"And only human colonies are being targeted?"

"So far. The Reapers have likely taken particular notice of us after the Alliance's involvement in defeating Sovereign. With you gone, they capitalized on it. I expect they'll branch out any day now."

"How do you know it's the Reapers?"

"I don't, not for certain. But they're the only ones we know of capable of something like this."

"And you're telling me the Alliance isn't investigating this?"

"All of the colonies that have been targeted so far have been in the Terminus Systems. The Alliance is concerned, but they aren't willing to risk launching a response unless they know for sure who's behind it all."

This was all truly disconcerting, but it was also all rather convenient. This was Cerberus she was dealing with. Who's to say they weren't leading her into a trap or stringing her along for their own benefit? How did she even know she had really been dead for two years and that her crew wasn't out there right now trying to find her in the wreckage of the ship? For that matter, she'd been unconscious for however long it had been, so how did she know they hadn't done something to her like put a control chip in her brain?

She finally shook her head. "Whatever's going on, I don't need your help to stop it." She turned to—

"Wait," the Illusive Man spoke up again, "I don't expect you to believe me without any proof."

She gave him a skeptical look.

"Freedom's Progress, the last colony that went dark. The investigative teams haven't arrived yet. But you can take Jacob and Miranda to investigate for yourself."

She scoffed. "And I'm just supposed to trust them? Because _you_ say so?"

"We've gone to a lot of trouble to bring you back, Shepard. None of us are going to risk letting anything undo that."

That remained to be seen. But in absence of any means of contacting her crew, she would have to go along with it. "Fine. I'm on my way."

"Good luck, Shepard," the Illusive Man nodded before disconnecting.

As she left the room, she was still growling to herself, as any turian would do. If her people were in danger, she had to go along with this to help them. But the second any one of these selfish xenophobes turned on her, she would show them why it was a bad idea to tick her off. She would make them pay so hard they would wish they hadn't bothered resurrecting her.

Then she'd track down Garrus and they'd do this themselves.


	35. Remains of Freedom

**Review reply for lordheistra222: Yes, it was mentioned very briefly in chapter 23 and it will be addressed again in about...oh...two scrolls down. ;)**

Chapter 35: Remains of Freedom

Freedom is hard won  
But it is harder kept

"We're almost to Freedom's Progress," Miranda reported, "Do you have any orders for us, commander?"

Terra scoffed. "Oh, so now _I'm_ in charge?"

Miranda managed to remain stoic as if the question had borne no threat to her at all. "The Illusive Man considered you essential largely because of your leadership skills. We're at your disposal."

_Then my first order is for you both to jump off the shuttle before reentry._ She almost smirked at the thought, but she thought better of it. No matter what she thought about their ideals, she couldn't hold it against them personally, especially not when they were prepared to help her. She'd have to step back into command as if they were her squad. Hopefully, they'd prove her wrong about how trustworthy they could be. She didn't expect they'd prove her wrong about anything else just yet, but she might as well give them a chance while she was at it. "Alright. Our first priority needs to be looking for survivors."

"Understandable, but it's unlikely. There were none left at any of the other colonies."

"Let's hope, though," Jacob stated, "Anything's better than another ghost town."

Having survived a slaver raid, Terra could empathize with that statement. When they did finally land and she saw the colony really was empty, she almost felt like that lost teenager again. But she wasn't anymore. She could do something about this one. She stepped off the shuttle with purpose, drawing her rifle. She had received a full supply of weapons before they set out, and though it made her miss the Spectre-requisitioned guns she'd accrued during the hunt for Saren and lost in the crash (then again, they were all overheats rather than thermal clips and thus hopelessly out of date), it made her feel like herself again. If she only had her old squad behind her rather than Jacob and Miranda, all would be right with the world. …aside from the fact said world was currently inhabited, that is.

They moved through the village, finding no sign of any evidence. As Jacob put it, it was as if everyone simply got up and left. This wasn't right. The entire place was cold and lonely, ringing with the silence Terra despised. She had to fix this. So when they stepped through a door to the next area, she was prepared to meticulously turn over every stone on this planet for some sign of who did this.

Until the mechs started shooting.

"Again?!" Terra demanded as they all took cover.

"Careful!" Jacob called, "They've got mobile platforms programmed to get close and cut our shields!"

_Of course they do._ "Start overloading them first! Take them down quick!" To their credit, Jacob and Miranda followed her instructions, softening up the mechs for her to make her shots count.

"I don't understand," Jacob said when the fight died down, "Security was disabled on the other colonies."

"Not just that," Miranda added, "Someone reprogrammed them to attack on sight. We're no alone here."

Terra wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. She just knew they had to keep moving to find out. She led them down to the residential area, stopping only to scan for clues or take out a few drones, and cut through a prefab to the next zone.

The last thing she expected to see inside that building was a team of quarians.

"Intruders!" one of them announced, prompting his squad to draw their weapons.

Terra was about to tell Jacob and Miranda to stand down so she could try talking her way out of this when another quarian raced over to mediate. "Wait! Prazza! You said you'd let me handle this!" The quarian turned to look at the arriving humans…and froze. "…Shepard?"

Terra froze with her. "Tali?"

Tali took a moment to again order the squad behind her to put their weapons down, but her focus was on Terra now. "Shepard, is that… You're alive?"

No, forget the guns. _Now_ Terra felt like herself again. She smiled to see one of her best friends here. "I am. Tali, you have no idea how happy I am to see you!"

Tali didn't move. She didn't know what to do. "I…how do I know you're really Shepard? Prove it."

Terra could easily have referred to one of their past conversations, reminded her of the geth data she helped her salvage for her Pilgrimage, or even just hugged her and known that would be enough. But the only thing that could really prove it was what she did: reaching under her armor to pull her necklace free and show the Vakarian clan markings on its charm.

Tali beamed behind her helmet when she saw that. Only Terra herself could wear that charm with such pride and belonging. "It _is_ you!" She turned back to the squad resolutely. "Prazza, weapons down. This is definitely Commander Shepard."

The quarian soldier named Prazza stowed his gun but also looked between Tali and the humans in confusion. "Why is your old commander working with Cerberus?"

Tali only now looked past Terra herself to see the Cerberus seals on Jacob and Miranda's uniforms. "I…I don't know. But she hates them as much as we do, so she must have a good reason."

Terra nodded, taking Tali's side. "They're the ones who brought me back. They're investigating the missing colonists. If I want to do the same, I'm stuck with them."

"Glad to know you feel that way, commander," Jacob shook his head.

Terra waved him off. She'd apologize later. …or not. "What are _you _doing here, anyway?"

"We're looking for a quarian who was on Pilgrimage here," Tali explained, "Veetor."

Terra gave her a curious look. "Why would a quarian go on Pilgrimage to a human colony in the Terminus Systems?"

"Veetor liked the idea of helping a small colony. He was always…_nervous_ in crowds."

"She means he's unstable," Prazza shook his head, "Combine that with open air exposure from damage to his suit's CO2 scrubbers and he's likely delirious."

"We just need to bring him back to the fleet."

"If he was here when the colonists disappeared," Miranda pointed out, "he might not be here now. Or if he is, he might have seen what happened."

"Then it's in our best interests to work together," Terra concurred.

"Good idea," Tali nodded, "You'll need two teams to get past the drones anyway."

"Now we're working with Cerberus?!" Prazza demanded.

"No, Prazza, you're working with me," Tali asserted, "If you have a problem with that, go wait on the ship."

Terra looked at Tali in astonishment. Her quarian Pilgrim had grown up while she was gone. She admired that. Too bad that meant they'd have to split up from here. "We should hurry. Keep in touch over the COMMs." _And be careful, Tali,_ she decided not to say in front of the other quarians, even though she truly meant it. She couldn't lose one of her best friends so soon after finding her again.

Tali seemed to understand, though. She'd spent enough time with the commander to know how she worried about her friends. "Will do. And Shepard…it's good to have you back."

Terra smiled. For the first time, she thought it was good to be back.

After they moved out and encountered more drones but no clues, Terra became convinced Veetor would be their only source of any information on what happened here. They'd have to be quick and careful. They made their way through the rest of the residential area and approached the industrial zone of the colony, finding the number of mechs they encountered increasing as if to prove they were going the right way, until Tali came over the line with a warning.

_"Shepard, Prazza's squad ran on ahead. I tried to stop them, but they wouldn't listen. They want to find Veetor and take him away before you get there."_

"Don't suppose you can do anything to slow them down," Terra sighed.

_"No, but maybe I can speed you up."_

"Did I mention how much I've missed you?"

_"I figured. But thanks."_

Terra smiled to herself as they continued towards the industrial zone, now with distant hacking support from Tali. This was more like what she wanted. If she had to go into a long firefight with only one person at her side and Garrus wasn't available, Tali was who she'd pick. There was something about the quarian that made her feel optimistic and protected. And the fact she was the best friend Terra had ever had besides Garrus or Solana was certainly part of that.

She missed the old days an awful lot, she realized. She was going to have to get the band back together. …assuming she could.

_"Shepard," Tali sent another warning over the COMMs as they approached the industrial center, "Veetor reprogrammed a heavy mech. It's tearing Prazza's squad apart!"_

"They did want to get to Veetor first," Miranda grumbled.

If Terra couldn't understand the operative's frustration, she'd be incensed that she could be so callous about other people's lives. As it was, she had to focus on the mission. "Anything you can do about it, Tali?"

_"No, but I can get you into position to take it out. Get to cover and I'll open the door."_

So Terra signaled Jacob and Miranda to either side of the main door to cover their entry as she took cover. When they were clear, Tali hacked into the locks and the door slid open. Terra peered around so she could see what was happening and when it would be safe for them to move up. So she saw the quarians getting all but torn apart by the massive mech blocking their path. She cringed sorrowfully at the sight of it, but it had already happened by the time there was something she could do. She couldn't save them. But she could avenge them.

"Stay down as much as you can, time your shots," Terra told Jacob and Miranda, "Take it down _hard_."

They did. It had been so focused on the quarians that it hadn't spotted them yet, so they got the drop on it. The first few shots wore down its shields enough that Miranda could overload them and warp its armor. Then it was just a matter of disabling it. That much Terra could do on her own. All she had to do was let off a few shotgun blasts at its head and it was open for all three of them to fire at once and take it down.

Terra took a moment to catch her breath after the mech blew. "Tali?"

"I'm over here!" Tali called from a structure off to the side, "We have wounded. I'll take care of them. You find Veetor. He's probably somewhere near the back of the loading bay."

Terra turned and saw one building perfectly positioned behind the defenses. She carefully approached, signaling Jacob and Miranda to stand down, and led the two operatives at her side into the building.

"…have to hide…" a terrified quarian was muttering to himself as he typed away at a terminal, "…mechs will protect…safe from swarms…no swarms, no monster, no, no, no, no…"

"Veetor?" Terra asked softly.

"I don't think he can hear you, commander," Jacob shook his head.

She had her ways, though. The quarian was focused on those terminals. She was still no technical expert, but she knew how to initiate a remote shutdown. All she had to do was send a simple command through her omni-tool and all the terminals on the wall powered down at once.

Veetor turned to face them. When he saw them, he turned from panicked to puzzled, standing to address them directly. "You…you're human? How did you escape?"

"We just got here," Terra explained, "We were hoping you could tell us what happened to everyone."

He shrunk back sadly, turning back to the terminals. "You don't know. You didn't see. But I see everything." He powered one of the terminals and set it to play a video.

"Looks like security footage," Jacob noted, "He must have pieced it together."

Terra watched the video in shock as it showed how strange creatures came and dragged the colonists away. "What are those things?"

Miranda examined them for a moment before she reflected Terra's shock. "I think they're Collectors."

Terra had heard of these. Strange creatures from uncharted space that occasionally went into the Terminus Systems to harvest living specimens. "I thought they kept to themselves."

"They do sometimes work as intermediaries. …maybe they work for the Reapers now."

"But how are they keeping the colonists from fighting back?"

"Seeker swarms," Veetor explained, his voice shaking with horror, "Machines like tiny insects. Swarms find you, sting you, freeze you. Then the monsters take you away."

"It must be an offensive technique to disable enemy defenses," Miranda reasoned, "Send in drones to immobilize targets with a stasis field or a nerve toxin."

Invaded, paralyzed, and dragged away by, as Veetor so accurately put it, _monsters_. Terra couldn't imagine what a nightmare those colonists had been living. She didn't want to think what was being done to them now. But Veetor? Well… "How did you stay hidden?" she asked the quarian gently.

"Swarms didn't find me," Veetor answered, clinging to the hope behind the statement, "Monsters didn't know I was here."

While Jacob theorized about the suit obscuring scans and Miranda suggested it had something to do with technology designed to detect humans since only humans were being targeted, Terra gave Veetor a sympathetic glance. Hiding away in a hole while forces you couldn't possibly fight dragged everyone around you to an unknown horrible fate, terrified they'd find you at any moment. She'd been there. She wondered if Veetor simply caved under the pressure given his already "unstable" nature…or if this was a grim vision of what might have become of her had Garrus not found her.

"What happened next?" Miranda finally asked.

"The monsters took them all away," Veetor whimpered, "But they'll come back for me. No one escapes."

"I don't think we're gonna get anything else out of him," Jacob observed.

Terra gave Veetor a smile she hoped was comforting, wishing she could do more for him. "Thank you."

Veetor nodded. "I scanned them. I recorded it in my omni-tool. Lots of readings. Dark energy."

"We could use that," Miranda said, "Grab the quarian, we'll take him back with us."

"What?!" Tali entered the room, already having heard enough. "Veetor is traumatized and injured. He needs treatment, not an interrogation!"

"Why should we? Your people already double-crossed us once before."

"Prazza was an idiot, and he and his men paid for it. This is different. You're welcome to take Veetor's omni-tool data, but please, just let me take him."

Terra turned to Tali. "You don't have to take him and go. You could come with me." She didn't say us, making it clear to Tali that she meant more to her than either of the operatives behind her. She hoped the rest of what she wanted to say was clear enough in her tone.

Tali merely looked at her, almost regretful. "I can't, Shepard. I have a mission of my own. But when it's over…and if I'm still alive…maybe I'll be able to help you then."

Terra gave her quarian friend a look of concern. "Tali, that sounds dangerous. What exactly are you doing?"

Tali glanced behind her former commander to Jacob and Miranda. "I don't think Cerberus should hear about it. But it's in geth space. That should tell you how important it is."

And how risky. If there weren't an untold number of lives on the line with the Collectors, Terra would drop Cerberus here and go with Tali (the quarians might not like it, but it wouldn't exactly be the first time she'd stowed away on an alien military mission). But she'd have to trust that Tali didn't need her. There was a significant chance she wouldn't since she was an expert on the geth and had more time clocked fighting them than any other quarian alive today. So Terra simply nodded to convey her wish of good luck upon her former teammate before turning to Miranda. "Veetor needs medical care. We'll take the data, he'll go with them."

Miranda, remarkably, didn't seem to even inwardly object to the order when she acknowledged it. Maybe there was hope for her yet.

"Thanks, Shepard," Tali said, "I'm glad you're still the one in charge."

Terra smirked. She intended to keep it that way. "Take care of him, Tali. I'll see you later."

Tali nodded. "Sounds like a plan."

Terra rode that wave of hope all the way back to the Cerberus station. Arriving there abruptly cut her off. Having to go talk to the Illusive Man in the COMM room again sent her crashing back to shore. But he had technically been telling the truth so far, so she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt for now.

For now.

"Shepard, good work on Freedom's Progress," he said as if he had ever expected any less, "The quarians forwarded their findings from Veetor's debriefing. No new data, but it's a surprising olive branch given our history."

"Yes," Terra scoffed, "well, having friends as well as subordinates tends to help. You should try it sometime."

He blatantly ignored the digging comment. "And you confirmed the Collectors are behind the attacks."

She outright rolled her eyes now. "Why am I not surprised that you're not surprised?"

"I had my suspicions. We don't have the means of intercepting them, though. Every time their business is complete, they retreat behind the unmapped Omega-4 relay."

Terra had heard of that relay, too. It was the space equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle. "I'm still a Spectre. Can't we get the Council to take action now that we know what's going on?"

"If you think you can convince them, by all means. But I doubt they'll see reason."

She was more than prepared to counter that they knew when action was needed. Then she remembered how many times they failed to see that during the hunt for Saren and figured this Illusive Man had a point. She hated to admit it, though. "So you're suggesting I work with _you_ instead?"

"We have the resources for you to lead a successful campaign against the Collectors," he nodded, "and whoever else the Reapers might send. Together, we can safeguard our colonies where the Alliance refuses to."

The very thought of it was wrong. She was Alliance through and through. She was turian at heart, after all, and they knew loyalty and service better than anyone. But serving the Alliance was how she defended those in need of her protection. What was happening to these colonists in the Terminus Systems was even worse than what happened to Mindoir. She had to take action. Stopping Saren had involved going behind the Council's back and technically committing an act of treason, so this wasn't all that different. But she drew the line somewhere, and this was on the verge of skirting that line.

So with her decision made, she stood firm, giving the Illusive Man a determined glare. "Let me be perfectly clear up front: I am _not_ working for you. I am doing this to help the colonists. That's it. If you want to help me, I won't turn you down. But the second you do something I don't agree with, I am shutting you down."

He seemed disappointed she wasn't going along with this entirely, but he had clearly expected as much. "I'm willing to accept those terms. Are you willing to do what's necessary to end the Collector threat?"

"I'm willing. But not ready. For a job like this, you need an army…" She smirked. "…or _I_ need a really good team."

"Of course. I've already assembled a list of soldiers, mercenaries, and—"

"Scrap it. I said a good team and there's only one team I trust. I want my crew back."

He shook his head. "I understand, Shepard, but it's been two years. Things have changed."

"Nice try. Tali already helped us on Freedom's Progress."

"That was unexpected. I need more intel before we can commit to that."

At that point, Terra was ready to scream in his face "For the last time, you're not the boss of me!", disconnect, steal a shuttle, and race after Tali herself. But Tali had made it clear she was about to go off the radar anyway, so there was no point. "Fine. What about Ashley?"

The Illusive Man started scrolling through a display by his chair, but it was pretty clear he had already prepared for exactly this line of questioning, judging by how cleanly he recited the answer. "Ashley Williams is on assignment with the Alliance. Her record is surprisingly well classified."

She figured that would be the end of that. Ashley wouldn't turn her back on an assignment, even for her old commander. "OK, what about Wrex?"

"Urdnot Wrex is a bit preoccupied with trying to unite the krogan clans on Tuchanka."

She almost smiled to hear that. The big guy really had gone home and now he was trying to unite his people? She'd miss having him backing her up, but she couldn't ask him to leave that. "Well, what about Liara then?"

"She's on Ilium. Our sources say she's working with the Shadow Broker. If so, she can't be trusted."

She almost fell over when she heard that. _Liara_? Working with the _Shadow Broker_? There had to be a mistake there. It'd only been two years. She couldn't have missed _that_ much.

Two years…

…wait…

Terra looked at the Illusive Man one last time, somewhere between purposeful and anxious. "…where's Garrus?"

He sighed, shutting off the display by his chair entirely. "Garrus Vakarian disappeared two months after your death. Even _we_ haven't been able to find him. I'm sorry."

…_no…_ Garrus was _missing_? This couldn't be happening. She had to find him. People don't just disappear. He had to be somewhere. She couldn't just lose him like that. If she'd come back after all this time just to find out he was gone, Cerberus would have wasted a lot of money on a broken soldier.

She couldn't think like that. She'd find him, but right now she had to stay focused. She took a deep breath to steel herself, telling herself she'd contact him later. "OK. I get it. They're not available."

The Illusive Man nodded and returned to explaining how he was going to send her the dossiers on the recruits he'd found her in lieu of her old squad. "First, you should head to Omega and find Dr. Mordin Solus. He's a genetic specialist and he might find a way to counteract the seeker swarms."

Pretty good reason, though she still wanted to snap about how he had no right to be giving her orders, especially this early in their little arrangement. "Fine. What else?"

He smirked. "I've found you a pilot. I hear he's the best."

Terra gave a confused look to the air in front of her as he disconnected. What was he playing at now?

"Hey, commander."

She froze. She knew that voice.

Joker stood there, smiling at the sight of her. "Just like old times, huh?"

It took everything in her not to burst out laughing with sheer delight and fling herself into hugging him. As it was, she was beaming nonstop as she followed him out to the station docking bay. "I can't believe it's you, Joker!"

He scoffed. "You're telling me. I'm the one who saw you get spaced."

She shrugged. "I got lucky. …with a _lot_ of strings attached. What are you even doing here?"

He shook his head as he hobbled his way up a flight of stairs and waved off any offer to help him. "Things went south after the crash. Everything you stirred up, the Council just wanted it gone. Then the Alliance stopped giving me pilot assignments. Take away the one thing that matters to me? I might just run to the competition."

She smirked. She admired his gumption, but she wished there had been some other "competition" for him to run to.

To his credit, he picked up on that. "Hey, I don't trust them any more than you do. But they're not _all_ bad. Saved your life, let me fly…and then there's this." He came up to a window, smiling at what was on the other side.

Terra came up beside him. She almost cried with joy at what she saw.

The ship was outwardly a perfect match to the _Normandy_. There were some slight differences, but it was still the turian-engineered, human-crafted ship that she had fallen in love with. She may have died that day, but a part of her had already died the second her beloved ship was destroyed. Seeing this one now, she felt like she was back home.

Joker sighed. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

Terra nodded. "Guess we're gonna have to give her a name."


	36. Alphas of Omega

Chapter 36: Alphas of Omega

A king may rule the ends of the earth  
But he will always be on the brink of falling

Much as she had been elated as the _Normandy SR-2_ performed its first takeoff, Terra found it hard to hold onto that feeling when she saw all the crewmen were Cerberus. She wanted to go around tearing the symbol off of everyone's uniforms and pretending she was back on the old ship, but that wouldn't solve anything (except maybe a little catharsis in the short run) and the layout of this ship was different enough that she couldn't pretend for long anyway. She was going to have to be content that she had her ship back in any form at all and she was back.

Though the thought of Garrus' disappearance still lingered in the back of her mind.

"I've been going over the dossiers," Miranda spoke up as she and Jacob took up position on the deck behind her, "I'd strongly suggest starting with Mordin Solus, the salarian professor on Omega."

"The Illusive Man already said as much," Terra nodded as she pulled up the dossiers on her omni-tool, "I couldn't think of any reason to say otherwise." The other dossiers were all straight-up combat specialists—a krogan, a mercenary, a vigilante, etc. She'd feel more prepared if she knew they had a scientist who could give them an edge in those combat situations.

_"Acquiring Professor Solus does seem like the logical place to start."_

Terra blinked. "…who said that?"

A holographic display lit up behind her. _"I am EDI, the ship's artificial intelligence."_

Terra stared at the display for a moment. "…uh…whose bright idea was _this_?" She was quick to defend the geth's status as living creatures to Tali, but that didn't mean she was comfortable having an AI onboard her ship.

_"I can understand your apprehension, commander. That is why my programming has been shackled prior to installation. During combat, I monitor the cyberwarfare suites. Otherwise, I observe and direct, nothing more."_

Oh. She didn't know how to feel about this. Frankly, she didn't know how to feel about anyone on this ship besides Joker. However she felt, though, they had their mission. They needed to get moving. "Alright, let's set our course then. Joker! We're headed to Omega!"

That was not a heading she had thought she would ever give him.

Once they were underway, she started going around the ship. She needed some time to herself before meeting the crew, so she headed up to deck 1, which was set aside as a captain's cabin. It was twice the size of her cabin on the original _Normandy_, complete with an elevated office area and a bafflingly included fish tank (seriously, but why?). This was a good space to compile her thoughts and air out her feelings, so she took a seat on the bed with a heavy sigh and set to doing so. Easier said than done, since it was hard to compile one's feelings about having died and come back to life and been forced to align with one of your most hated enemies. Looking over at the seaweed swaying in the glowing blue water of the fish tank soothed her thoughts, but it also made her realize: she could easily come to terms with all of it with a little drawing and poetry.

Then she reached for her pack and found it empty.

Oh no. She'd left her sketchbook in her cabin on the first _Normandy_. It was gone.

She almost started crying when she realized that. Though a lot of those tears were probably also from the two years since that day. But she couldn't shed them. Not here. She had to play commander. Oh, spirits, was that AI watching her right now? Was it going to tell the Illusive Man what she was doing? Then again, what did she care what they thought? They had _no _idea what she was going through.

There was only one person who ever understood her.

That thought drove her to act. She quickly turned on her COMM and tried to call her turian. It didn't go through. Either he was out of range of a COMM buoy, his COMM was turned off, or…or…no. No, it had to be one of those. He was fine. She would know if he wasn't. She was going to find him. …she had to.

After taking enough time to collect herself, telling herself she'd find a new sketchbook on Omega if they had time, she started going around the ship to meet the crew, starting on the lowest deck in engineering. It wasn't right that Tali wasn't overseeing this fancy new drive core, but Engineers Daniels and Donnelly went a ways towards filling the void, much more friendly (and, quite frankly, amusing) than she anticipated from Cerberus personnel. When she headed up to the crew deck, she was a bit exasperated to find Miranda had installed herself in the XO cabin (though she wasn't sure what she had been expecting) and pleasantly surprised to find Dr. Chakwas herself in the med bay. Between Chakwas and Joker, there was some hope for this ship to feel like home again.

"Can you believe this?!" Joker was exclaiming the second she walked onto the bridge, "It's my baby! Better than new, it fits me like a glove! And _leather seats_!"

_"The recreation was not meant to be perfect, Mr. Moreau," EDI spoke up, "Seamless improvements were made."_

Joker sighed, shaking his head. "And there's the downside."

Terra smirked to see her favorite pilot already bickering with the AI, but he also reminded her of her disappointment about the new arrangements. "There isn't anything on this ship that was even part of the original _Normandy_."

"There's us," Joker shrugged, "That's gotta count for something."

Terra smiled now. "Yeah. It's something."

"Don't worry, commander. We'll get it done. It'll be better than the old days."

"I hope so. I died."

"Wow, way to bring it down." Before she could retort, he checked the systems. "Looks like we're coming up on Omega if you wanna gear up."

Terra nodded and left him to start docking. Miranda and Jacob met her in the armory to grab their weapons. They hadn't let her down so far, so she was content to think they would be a squad she could rely on for now. She was still watching them, though.

Then again, she had to watch everyone around here.

Terra knew as soon as they landed that she didn't like Omega. The whole station was dark, filthy, and bloody, shades of life she had less than no desire to capture. The place was so packed with seedy types and mercenary hives it made her skin crawl. She wanted to head back to the _Normandy_ with some lame excuse about how it was too soon after she'd woken up to dive headfirst into a place like this and pretend to play nice with the crooked inhabitants, wanted to let Jacob and Miranda figure out where they were going and call her back from there, but she still had to play the commander, even if she wasn't Alliance anymore, a thought that also made her feel lost. They were just going to have to make this quick.

"Where are we headed?" she asked.

"Well," Miranda started as she and Jacob followed Terra out of the docking bay, "Mordin Solus has a clinic in the Gozu District, which is—"

_"If I may," EDI cut in, "I suggest we alter priorities with haste. I am detecting a large amount of chatter over local mercenary communications regarding plans to 'deal with Archangel.' His life may be in great jeopardy if you do not intervene immediately."_

Terra briefly checked her omni-tool, looking over the dossiers again. Archangel was the name (or codename, at least) of a vigilante in operation on Omega who Cerberus had thought would be a good addition to the team. That remained to be seen, but she wasn't about to let some hesitation put his life at risk. "Do you know where we can find him?"

_"The mercenaries themselves will likely lead you straight there. There is a recruiting station set up in the club called Afterlife to hire freelancers."_

"Undercover work, huh? Worth a shot." She didn't like the thought of pretending to be a mercenary, but it wasn't all that different from temporarily allying with Cerberus, so she went along with it. First things first, though, the second they stepped into Afterlife, they were called up to meet Omega's so-called ruler, Aria T'Loak. Terra managed to play nice for a while, Aria somehow managing to do the same, until the asari asked what they were doing there. "Looking for someone called Archangel."

Aria scoffed, clearly almost laughing. "You and half of Omega. You want him dead, too?"

Terra looked at the asari in amazement. Half of Omega? "What did this guy do?"

"He thinks he's fighting on the side of good. There is no good side to Omega. You know how bad it is because the Blood Pack, Blue Suns, and Eclipse are _all_ after his head. Normally, those gangs wouldn't have anything to do with each other, but he's got them all wound up so much they teamed up to take him down. If you ask me, he's got a habit of causing trouble."

Terra smirked. "Sounds like just the kind of guy I'm looking for."

Aria smirked back. "Well, aren't you interesting."

As Terra was taking directions to the mercenary recruiter, she fought the need to correct the asari's implication. She was looking for someone to help her in a firefight, not someone to cozy up to. As far as she was concerned, the only person she'd ever want to get into trouble with, in _any_ sense, was Garrus Vakarian. She was tempted to ask after news of him, but she had no idea how to and Omega was the last place she'd want to find him in anyway. So instead, she followed the directions to the recruitment station.

Just at the mere sight of her, the merc at the station started looking at her in a way that made her want to make him swallow his own tongue. "You're in the wrong place, honey, strippers' quarters are _that_ way."

On second thought, she _would _make him swallow his own tongue. Or…hmm. She shrugged. "If you say so." Then, instead of turning to go, she grabbed a knife from a nearby table and threw it at him.

It whirled past his head to slam into the wall behind him, but he still noticed. Needless to say, he got the point. "OK! OK. You mean business."

She folded her arms at him. "Especially if this is the place to go for Archangel."

It was. The recruiter pointed them in the right direction for a Blue Suns operative to take them straight to the Kima District. Terra amazed herself at how well she was hiding the distaste she had for each and every one of the mercs that met them there. Seeing the arrangements they'd made for this siege and how many losses they had taken anyway, she was beyond impressed Archangel was holding out so well. From the way the mercs were talking, though, he was already getting tired and making mistakes. He wouldn't last much longer unless they helped.

And there were more ways than one to do that.

When they came up on the Eclipse's base in the siege, Terra couldn't help but notice the weaponry and supplies they were hoarding in a side room. She quietly nodded to Miranda to head in and see what she could do while she and Jacob distracted the Eclipse themselves. She did so by finding the man in charge, a salarian, and striking up a conversation. Because if there was one thing she was good at, it was talking her way out of things. "You run the Eclipse?"

The salarian scoffed. "You figure that out by yourself? I'm Jaroth, I run Omega's Eclipse. What do you want?"

She cocked her head, doing her best to act innocently. "Just wondering what you know about this Archangel guy."

"His life expectancy is shortening quickly."

She blinked. "That's it? You don't even know who he is?"

Jaroth shook his head. "Even his team didn't know that. But look around you and you'll find out all you need to know. He's smart, he's resourceful, and he's dangerous."

"You sound like it's personal."

She'd never seen a salarian sneer like this before. "A month ago, he struck one of our transports and killed several of our operatives, one of whom was my _brother_, so yes, it's very personal."

She knew what it was like to lose a brother, so she knew to tread carefully over the matter. It was best to call it there. She quickly ducked out of the conversation and went to check on the supply room. "Got it?"

"Got it," Miranda reported as she ducked out, "That fancy mech of theirs is about to lose power to its IFF."

Terra smirked at the thought of them turning it on and getting immediately shot by it. "Excellent."

They kept moving through the line, occasionally catching sight of one of the mercs on the barricades dropping from a headshot that looked about 200 meters away. Terra hadn't seen any sniper pull off a shot like that since… She shook it off. She couldn't think about Garrus right now. She had to focus on the mission, save Archangel while there was still an Archangel to save. When they came up on the Blood Pack outpost, she gestured to Jacob to look for a way to silently sabotage them while she and Miranda chatted up the leader.

The krogan snarled at the mere sight of them. "You're in the wrong place, freelancer."

Terra stood firm, though, not one to be intimidated. "You the Blood Pack leader?"

"Garm to you. Ask your questions and get out of my face."

Still not budging. "What do you know about Archangel?"

"Thinks killing mercs is a good way to pass the time. He's a turian, which makes him slightly worse to look at than you. And he's tough…until he realizes you're more than he bargained for."

Still not budging, but now her curiosity was piqued. "What do you mean?"

"Tangled with him once. He waited until I was alone. Longest fight of my life. Eventually, my vorcha showed up. He wasn't so brave then. We chased him over half of Omega before he disappeared."

That was one way to interpret it. She knew turian retreats were usually a lot more tactical than that, even on their own. He would only have disappeared if he thought he couldn't pick them off. This guy was starting to impress her.

Jacob wasn't able to find any means of sabotaging the Blood Pack's progress, but they didn't have time to search more thoroughly. They had to keep moving. So Terra led the two operatives at her side up to the Blue Suns' outpost, all the while wondering why Cerberus was willing to send her after a turian. Because they knew her background and figured she'd be more comfortable with it? Because they were trying to make a point to her? Whatever the reason, she'd figure it out eventually. Right now, she stepped through the Blue Suns' door—

"Who let this freelancer in here?!" the batarian in charge snapped the second the door opened.

"Whoa!" Terra tried to step back, "I just had a few questions—"

"Jentha! Get this scum out of my face!"

A human woman in a Blue Suns uniform signaled them off to the side. "You'll have to excuse Tarak. He's a bit…on edge."

"I noticed," Terra commented, masking her attempts to search the room for another way to slow the mercs down.

"It's Archangel. Last month, he came after Tarak personally. _At his home_. Since then, he's been dead-set on taking the guy down, second-guessing every last thing I do. The fact he's teaming up with the other gangs just shows you how low he's sunk—they're as bad as Archangel."

An interesting opinion, but an even more interesting story. Terra wasn't sure anymore if this Archangel was the karmic balance on Omega or just someone with a vendetta. She wasn't in any position to be picky, though, and it was too late to turn back. So she left the Blue Suns' outpost, again not having found any way to slow their progress, and headed for the main barricade. Finding a batarian there fixing a gunship did nothing for her morale, but she didn't have time to worry about that either. She did, however, have time to worry about how the batarian was ordering them to go in: straight through the killing field that was the bridge into the base, distracting Archangel while the other mercs organized their grand assault.

"That sounds like a suicide mission," Miranda remarked.

Terra gave an offhand comment about how they could handle it as she sized up the gunship. It had taken a few hits and was only halfway back to full repair. If she could just find a way to—

Suddenly, the batarian's COMM lit up. "Check. Bravo Team, go, go, go!"

Terra stepped back as a group of freelancers approached the main barricade to mobilize. Now was their chance.

"Archangel's got quite the surprise coming," the batarian said, "But that means no more waiting for me." He turned to get back to work on the gunship.

Terra couldn't let this just go by. She still wasn't a technical genius, though, so she didn't know how to stop him quickly. The fact he had left a live taser just sitting there was tempting but seemed unnecessarily cruel. But there was always the simple approach. She smirked as she walked up to the batarian, placed a hand on his shoulder… "You're working too hard." …and slammed his head into the side of the ship, knocking him unconscious. "You should get some rest." As she met up with Jacob and Miranda by the barricade to move in, she thought she was going to like these new cybernetics.

As they came onto the bridge, the freelancers were moving in with weapons drawn.

"Archangel's in trouble if we don't move now," Miranda observed.

As if to disprove her, the figure on the top floor of the base on the other end of the bridge expertly dodged an incoming rocket before ducking back out of cover to pick off three mercs in a row with headshots. Surprisingly skillful.

Terra readied her own sniper rifle. "Let's give these guys a surprise of our own." She ducked down behind a pillar on the bridge to position herself to start aiming. The freelancers were largely trying to storm the gates, ineffectively, but a few were staying back like her. To keep up appearances until it was time to open fire, she took aim up on the balcony at Archangel, taking this chance to size him up. A turian, yes, with blue armor and a sniper rifle that he clutched like he'd been born with it in his hands. As he kept popping out for quick headshots, she couldn't help but admire his prowess, pulling off with ease moves that truly did remind her of…

…of…

…

…_no way_.

She froze. Actually froze. When his sights finally turned on her and she saw him do the same, she knew. She knew that he knew. She would have recognized those moves anywhere. He was the one that taught them to her. It was really…

She had to get up there. And no discount freelancer was getting in her way.

With alarming speed, she took aim on the one freelancer that had snuck past the front door of the base while their target was focused on her and took him down with one headshot. All of the other freelancers had exactly two seconds to figure out that the shot came from their end of the bridge before she had capped the next two.

"She's with Archangel!" one of the freelancers who had taken cover on the bridge with her cried, turning his weapon on her.

Jacob immediately shot him down, Miranda doing the same for the freelancer on the other side.

Terra took that chance to set off running down the bridge and into the base, not even slowing to shoot down any other freelancers that so much as took aim on her. When she stormed up the stairs to find one lone freelancer had managed to come all the way up here and start hacking on the door, she cut loose on him, shooting him three times (two of which may or may not have been after he was already dead, since she didn't bother stopping to check) and then throwing the door open herself.

Thankful Jacob and Miranda managed to keep up and not question her ferocity, she hesitantly entered the room, putting her gun away as the turian inside made one last headshot on the only freelancer to survive her assault. She could have taken simply that shot as confirmation enough, but she had to know. "…Archangel?"

He stopped moving when he heard her voice. Slowly, he got back on his feet, laying his rifle down and turning to face her. Then he, with some hesitation of his own, took off his helmet. To reveal Garrus Vakarian underneath it. "…Terra?"

As if Jacob and Miranda weren't even in the room, she fought the sudden urge to cry with complete and utter joy and threw herself into his arms.

Garrus held her tighter than he usually dared. "I thought you were dead."

Terra smiled at the sound of his voice. "I'm not going anywhere. Not without you."


	37. Guarding Archangel

Chapter 37: Guarding Archangel

A heart is only whole if it knows love  
Love that yields but does not break  
Love that defends and does not falter  
For those we love, we would face any enemy  
For only love can conquer death itself

When Garrus had found himself pinned in his own base by a seemingly unending assault, he had known it was the end. He had accepted it with alarming ease. Accepted it but not given up. True to his mission, he had resolved not to go down without a fight but rather to take as many of them with him as he could. He had held out as long as possible before exhaustion and hopelessness started to set in. He had only turned on his COMM ten minutes ago to call his father, holding onto the responding plea to make it home. He had promised he would try. Two seconds after he hung up, he'd seen her. Looking through his scope and seeing Terra Shepard on the other side two years after her demise, he had been convinced it was the end and her spirit was coming to take him back to her. Instead, she'd looked at him with the same astonishment and fought her way up to him. Now she was clinging to him again. It was so familiar, her voice in his ear as soothing and musical as ever, and he knew to the depths of his soul that it was real.

She was _back_.

"How did you find me?" he asked when she finally pulled away to simply look at him again.

She almost laughed, somehow having managed not to cry. "It's kind of a long story." Then she seemed to remember where they were. "What are you doing here?!"

He suddenly realized that she had, in fact, caught him in the middle of Omega. It had never occurred to him he might have to explain himself to her one day. "I…" He sighed. "Things changed on the Citadel after you were gone. I couldn't stay there anymore. I just thought I could do more good here."

She scoffed. "_Here_?"

"…let's just say I filled a position the station didn't have until then."

"Right. And how exactly did you manage to tick off every major merc organization in the Terminus Systems?"

"It wasn't easy. I really had to work at it."

She actually did laugh now. Briefly, but it was enough. She hadn't done it at all since her restoration. Five seconds with him and it was all too easy.

He smiled at the sound of it. Again, briefly, but it was enough. There was something about her that gave him back the hope that had been slowly drained from him over the past…well, two years. "I am surprised they teamed up to take me down. They must _really_ hate me."

"Clearly." Then something else occurred to her and she looked at him with a sly smirk. "And since when did you start calling yourself 'Archangel'?"

He winced. "Uh, I didn't. The locals came up with it. For…all my good deeds."

She smiled, somewhere between amused and proud. "It fits. Not that you're gonna hear the end of it."

He groaned. He could already hear the teasing. Then again, he had been missing that teasing for a while. For a moment, he simply looked at her, the best friend he'd been denied for so long… He smiled. "I've missed you."

Hearing the words struck her. To her, it'd only been a few days since she last saw him. He'd been without her for _two years_. She couldn't imagine what that must have been like. "I—"

"Commander?" Miranda hesitantly stepped back in, "I hate to interrupt, but those mercenaries will be sending in the next wave soon."

Oh, yeah. She'd almost forgotten they were still in a base that was under siege. "Right. Well, we got in, but I doubt getting out will be as easy."

Garrus shook his head. "No, it won't. That bridge has saved my life, funneling all those witless idiots into scope, but it works both ways. They'll slaughter us if we try to go out that way."

Terra nodded. "Then we hold here. You'll stand a better chance with the three of us backing you up."

"Shore up, wait for a crack in their defenses, and make a run for it?"

"You got a better idea?"

"No. But it's a plan." He grabbed his rifle back. "Let's see what they're up to." He looked through the scope toward the barricade. "Looks like they know their advance team failed. They're sending in scouts. Eclipse, I think."

Terra drew her own rifle and followed his gaze. She could see mechs being deployed. "That looks like more than scouts, Garrus."

"Yeah. We should probably get ready."

"Or…" She took a shot, taking the head off the first mech to step onto the bridge.

Garrus smirked. "I _really_ missed you."

They used the balcony as cover, sniping down every target to so much as poke their head over the barricade. Jacob and Miranda were essentially reduced to fire support and wearing down defenses while Terra and Garrus tore through the opposition. It was only when the mercs stopped coming and the heavy mech came out that Garrus outright ducked down.

Terra merely gave him a smirk, gesturing for him to sit back and enjoy the show. "This problem should take care of itself."

Curious at first and then outright laughing, he watched with her as the mech turned to start firing on the Eclipse behind it. The mercs were confused for about three seconds before they started accruing casualties and turned individually terrified or furious. Jaroth himself fell in the latter camp, coming out to open fire on the mech as his forces diminished around him. The mech finally set its sights solely on him. When his attacks wore down its armor, it closed on him and grabbed him to either shoot his chest cavity open at point-blank range or slam him into the ground. Before either could happen, he hacked in to freeze the mech in place so he could shoot out its internal circuits, leaping back before it blew. He was now free to set his sights on Archangel.

He didn't make it one step over the bridge from the remains of the mech before Terra and Garrus both at once fired a sniper round into his head.

Garrus smirked. "I see you haven't lost your touch."

Terra shrugged smugly. "Yeah, well, like I said, you're a good teacher."

"Goes both ways, Shepard."

Terra scanned the bridge and the barricade as they regrouped. "Looks like the Eclipse are taken care of. Think we can fight our way past the other two?"

"Seems risky," Garrus said as he scanned the other side with her, "Maybe…" He started looking more closely, once again using both his scope and his visor to get a better view. "Something's not right. They're not mobilizing. What are they waiting for?"

As if in answer, the foundation of the building seemed to shake, the sound of an explosion going off some ways below them.

"What was that?" Jacob asked.

Garrus quickly used his omni-tool to check the internal security on the building, finding the lower levels breached. "Crap! They're trying to access the tunnels." He sighed as he turned off his omni-tool. "Guess they had to start using their brains sometime. Someone's gonna have to go down to close those shutters."

Terra gave him a look as if to say _Yeah, right._ "If you think I'm leaving your side _now_, you've got another thing coming, Vakarian."

"It's that or let them sneak in behind us," Garrus countered.

"No, it's really not." She turned to Miranda and Jacob. "Get down there and cut them off. Both of you."

"On it, commander," Miranda nodded, leading Jacob down to the lower level.

Once they were gone, Terra drew her rifle. "Care for a challenge?"

Garrus shook his head with a smirk. "Against you? Too many draws."

It was just the two of them now, but she had long ago discovered that was more than enough. What's more, they had every advantage. They were nestled in a perch on the high ground with a perfect view of a long-ranged, bottlenecked area with limited cover. It was a sniper's paradise. No wonder Garrus had held out for so long.

The Blood Pack forces were tough, but no match for them. They were essentially just buying time for Jacob and Miranda to handle things down below. There were three different tunnels the operatives needed to shutter, and it took nearly five minutes for them to announce over the COMM that they'd cleared the first one. Worrying, but she could handle things up here. She wasn't letting _anything_ get through to her turian.

"Getting low on ammo," Garrus eventually said.

Terra ducked down to pull out her pistol and take the thermal clips from it, tossing all but two to Garrus before locking those two into her own rifle. "Never thought I'd miss when weapons overheated."

Garrus scoffed. "You still don't."

"No, but that doesn't mean I like feeling limited."

"You're telling me. I had a month's supply of thermal clips in here when this mess started."

That set off a red flag in her mind. She suddenly realized she had never asked any of the mercs how long they'd been assaulting the base before getting through. "Wait, how long have you been up here?"

He hesitated to answer. That was only making it worse, though, so he caved and checked his systems. "…just 56 hours."

"_Straight_?!"

"That's what stims are for!"

"Well, it's no wonder they were wearing you down!"

"You're not about to suggest I should've tried to sleep while I was being shot at, are you?"

"No, but I expect a full explanation for how you got into this mess and two nights' worth of rest after I pull you out of here."

He gave her a look. "Since when do _you_ worry about _me_?"

"Since _this_! Now get down!" She all but shoved him to the side to reload as she tossed a grenade into the fray and shot down anyone who tried to escape the blast radius. Then she realized that was the last of the grenades in the stockpile and Cerberus hadn't given her any. With a groan, she turned to her COMM. "How much longer, you guys?"

_"Sealing the second shutter now, commander," Jacob answered._

"Well, hurry up. They're starting to get serious."

"'Starting to'?" Garrus retorted as he got back up and readied for the next wave.

She wasn't wrong, though. This wave proved harder. Apparently, vorcha were more effective when they hunted in packs. With such limited supplies and more waves on the way, Terra and Garrus had to resort to more sneaky tactics, like setting each other up for trick shots, having Garrus sabotage their weapons, and even using one of them to draw fire so the other could line up headshots in a chain. It was only when Garrus overloaded a pyro to explode on its entire unit that they realized the assault was slowing down.

"What are they up to now?" Terra questioned. She turned to her COMM. "Are you guys OK down there?"

_"Last shutter's closed," Miranda answered, "We're on our way back."_

"Then what…?" Then she listened. She could hear a sound like welding metal. Under these circumstances, that was _not_ a good sign. "Garrus?"

He looked at her, his eyes reflecting her concern. He heard it, too. He led her across the room to peer over the railing at the main floor.

She immediately hit her COMM again. "Get back here now! They're breaking through the door!"

She hadn't even finished giving the warning before the door was thrown open and an angry krogan led a squad of vorcha through. "RRRAAAHHH! Rip them to shreds!"

Terra and Garrus answered that by shooting the vorcha on either side of him in the head. Garm himself raced around to charge up the stairs at them. Terra distantly noted a couple more of the vorcha suddenly going down when neither she nor Garrus fired, so Jacob and Miranda must already be nearly back on the main floor. So she put aside the sniper rifle that was about to become absolutely useless and drew her shotgun. She had just enough time to mod it with incendiary rounds before the krogan battle-master charged through the door into the room with them.

"Therum?" Terra asked Garrus.

He nodded. "Therum."

So they ducked to either side when Garm charged and started employing some of the tactics that took down the krogan who had gone after Liara, right down to Terra tackling him to send three shotgun rounds through his face-plate. Unfortunately, Garm regenerated faster than the battle-master this previously worked on and was able to throw Terra with full biotic force into the wall. She put her trust in Garrus to blindside Garm while she recovered, but it wasn't that simple. She was a nuisance, _Garrus_ was the target. Garm immediately turned all his focus on the turian he'd come to kill. Garrus barely had time to dodge the worst of it, the tight space leaving him no room to maneuver around the lesser shots. His shields took the brunt of the damage, but his armor couldn't hold the rest. Right when he had the chance to start firing back, a Claymore round went through his carapace. He stumbled back from the force, clutching the wound in pain as bright blue blood started leaking over his talons. Garm took this opportunity to line up a kill shot…

…and Terra immediately threw herself at him, slamming her entire shotgun into his face. He somehow managed not to lose his footing, but this just gave her a chance to start tearing into him. Not giving him a second in which to recharge his barrier or regenerate, she fired until the trigger clicked then fired a concussive shot into his skull at point-blank range. Even a krogan couldn't recover from that.

Garrus watched in amazement. "You _do_ care."

She ignored the comment, stowing her gun before rushing over to check his wound. "Don't worry, I—" Then she actually checked her medi-gel supply. Stupid Cerberus had apparently neglected to account for the fact that one of the potential recruits they sent her after was a turian and had only bothered to equip her with levo-grade medi-gel.

"There's some in the room down the hall," Garrus informed her when he saw the problem.

She turned to see Jacob and Miranda coming in from dealing with the last of the vorcha. She sent Jacob to grab the medi-gel while she applied pressure to the wound to keep him from losing too much blood. When Jacob came back and tossed one of the packs her way, she immediately started applying it, sighing with relief when the wound almost immediately sealed. "OK. The Blood Pack's finished. It's just the Blue Suns left. I say we make a break for it while we still can."

Garrus nodded as he repaired his armor and checked his rifle. "Tarak's got the toughest group, but it's nothing we haven't faced before. We can probably make it if we—"

That's when the gunship came, shooting out the window on the far side of the room.

"I thought I took that thing out already!" Garrus exclaimed as they took cover.

"They fixed it," Terra informed him, "but not completely."

"They're dropping in reinforcements!" Miranda declared.

Terra quickly drew her assault rifle and shot three of the mercs off the ropes before they could come through the broken window. She tried to get a few shots on the gunship while she was at it, just to wear it down, but it flew out of her range too soon, forcing her to focus fire on the foot soldiers.

"Watch out!" Garrus called, peering over the railing again, "They're dropping reinforcements on the lower level!"

"I'm on it!" Terra responded, leaping over the railing to drop in for herself. She could hear Jacob and Miranda rushing to follow her down (presumably with the stairs since they didn't have cybernetics reinforcing their skeletons) while Garrus finished off the troops dropped on the upper floor, but she didn't need their help to make these mercenaries regret coming near her turian. Four headshots in quick succession and one shotgun incapacitation with only peripheral aim did the intimidation for her, though none of the mercs actually ran, so it was just a matter of time before they all went down. Her shotgun was empty by the end of it, her pistol having been emptied earlier, but she was still certain she had enough left to finish this if they moved fast.

She was certain, that is, until the gunship came back. _"ARCHANGEL!"_

Garrus had cleared the upper floor by then, but he was straight back into combat mode when he heard that, turning to face the gunship with his rifle armed. He didn't even get the chance to take aim before it opened fire on him.

Terra didn't have a good enough angle from the lower floor to see if he was injured or not, but she wasn't about to wait to find out. All but shoving Jacob and Miranda aside, she rushed back up the stairs.

Garrus was on his hands and knees to take cover. He wasn't bleeding, just winded, so he readied to move in. His shields had been overloaded by that onslaught, though, so he had to be careful. When the shots died down, he rolled out of his hiding place to counterattack right as Terra rounded the corner.

Neither of them so much as raised their weapons before the gunship fired a rocket straight into Garrus' face.

Terra had died before, but she only felt like it when she saw her turian go down. "GARRUS!" She started running to his side without giving herself a chance to think, only remembering to duck down when the gunship started firing again. The fact it was keeping her from his side when she could see him lying there, not moving, azure blood leaking from his side…

This monster had to die.

Tarak was still skirting her range, dropping in reinforcements to take fire for him, but it did nothing to deter her. She took all of one second to order Jacob and Miranda to watch her back because _Tarak was hers_. Then she drew her sniper rifle and took aim. The gunship itself was already slightly damaged, a fact she capitalized on. She shot through every last one of its most weakly armored points every time it stopped firing for even half a second. As soon as she could, she shot out the glass on the cockpit to expose it. Tarak saw what was happening and started trying to back out. There was no backing out. With one shot, his lower right eye burst open and he lost control. That was the end of that.

Terra didn't allow herself much time to admire the grandeur of the satisfyingly cathartic explosion. The second she was certain it was clear, she was on her knees beside Garrus, checking on him. _Please…please don't leave me, not like this. I just got you back, I can't lose you. I can't do this without you. _"…I love you," she whispered without realizing it, reaching anxiously for his pulse.

Before she even touched him, his eyes snapped open and he started gasping for breath.

"Garrus!" she gasped, carefully turning him to check the wound. Just at the sight of it, she almost broke down in tears and panic. His armor had fractured under the shot and exposed the entire lower right of his face to it, leaving a mess of broken plates, torn ligaments, and blood. It was too much for medi-gel. He needed a doctor. Suddenly, she remembered Miranda and Jacob were there and turned to them. "Call the _Normandy_, tell them to prep the med bay."

"Commander, I don't think we should move him—" Miranda started.

"_NOW_!" If they said one more word, she thought she was going to end up shooting them. It occurred to her that she wouldn't care if she did; she figured she needed Garrus more than she needed either of them and she was more than willing to drag him back to the docking bay all by herself if she needed to.

Luckily, it didn't come to that. They both saw it was best not to argue with her and stepped aside to make sure the ship was ready for them.

Once they were out of earshot, Terra turned back to her turian, cradling him where she could tend the damage. "I'm right here. Stay with me. Just hold on."

He was struggling to stay conscious, fighting pain, his straining vision locked on her. Weakly, he clutched her hand, leaning on her for strength. Reminding himself she had really come back to him. He wanted to say something, though he wasn't sure what he could say at a time like this, but just trying sent flares of pain and heat through his injured right side.

She didn't need to hear it, though. She knew. She held onto him, determined not to let go this time. "…just hold on…"


	38. Restoration

Chapter 38: Restoration

We may change, but who we are does not  
Our hearts cannot change their rhythm  
Just as they cannot change who holds them

It took ten minutes for them to safely transport Garrus from the base to the ship. In that time, he lost consciousness three different times. Each time, Terra's heart rate slowly climbed with fear that he wouldn't wake up again. Twice it even seemed like he stopped breathing, but she was clinging tightly to him enough to feel his pulse still weakly pounding. She refused to leave his side even when Dr. Chakwas and everyone else on the ship with medical training took him down to the med bay on deck 3. Everyone but Chakwas (who clearly knew better) attempted to talk her down so she would leave them to their work only for her to snap back almost violently that she was in charge and the patient was family. She did still have the sense to stay on his uninjured left side while the doctors worked on his wounds, but she also kept both her hands tight around his talons, two fingers pressed in position to feel his erratic pulse, her breathing getting heavier every time she had to fight off the thought that he might not make it. It was only when Chakwas herself finally stepped in and asked Terra to go that she realized it was in Garrus' best interest for her to let the doctors do their job. Even when she went along with it, though, she lingered, looking back at him sadly and telling herself he would recover soon enough. If anyone could, it was him.

Besides, Cerberus had just brought her back from the dead. If she had to, she would do everything in her power to make sure they could do at least that much for him.

She wound up pacing her cabin, asking EDI for progress reports on Garrus' treatment every five minutes. As soon as the words "emergency surgery" came up, she started fretting again. She finally sat down on her bed, clutching her necklace and praying to God (and all the spirits, just to be certain) that Garrus would be OK. EDI eventually reminded her that she hadn't slept since her resurrection and she'd been through a lot, but she couldn't sleep with this hanging over her. Instead, she forced herself to do something to take her mind off the worry and headed down to the COMM room on deck 2. There wasn't enough data on the Collectors or the dossiers to truly take her mind off of it, though.

There wasn't enough data in the galaxy for that.

After what felt like days of waiting, Jacob found her in the COMM room. He approached carefully. Everyone on the ship knew about the commander's history with the turians, especially how much Garrus Vakarian in particular meant to her. He didn't want to be the one to tell her this. He wasn't even sure how to. But someone had to. So he stepped in. "Shepard."

She acknowledged him but didn't look at him, still clutching her necklace.

"The docs did what they could for Garrus…but he took a bad hit."

Yeah, she had seen. She had hoped Cerberus, with all its resources, would be able to fix it even from here. If they let anything happen to her turian, they were going to regret having brought her back.

Jacob sighed. "They made some corrections with the emergency surgery and a few cybernetics, but—"

That was when the door opened. "Terra."

Terra reacted now. She turned on the spot to face the door, hope returning at the sound of his voice.

Garrus stood there, like nothing had happened. His armor was broken at the collar, the lower right side of his face was covered by a bandage, and what was visible of his lower right side was riddled with scars. But he was alright just the same.

Jacob smirked. "He's a tough one. I didn't think he'd be back on his feet for days."

Terra shook her head. "This turian is special."

"Oh, stop," Garrus smirked. Then the smirk set off a twinge of pain and he decided it was best to save the snarky responses for later. "No one would give me a mirror, by the way. How bad is it?"

Terra cocked her head, eying him sarcastically. "How bad is what?"

"Very funny."

"It's just a few scars. I kind of like it."

He did his best not to smile while his face was still struggling to stay in one piece. "You would."

"Well, I hear some women find it attractive."

"Yeah, but most of those women are krogan."

She laughed. It felt good to do that again. When Jacob left the room with a quick salute, though, the past 24 hours seemed to cave in on her at once. The second the door closed, she found herself rushing over to hug her turian again, careful to lean on his left side. "I was so worried."

He simply held onto her, like he hadn't been able to for two years. "…I left you there…"

"No," she quickly started reassuring him, leaning back to meet his eyes and show him how much she meant it, "I told you to."

He just looked at her, that day flashing through his mind again, closely followed by the nightmare that had been the following two months. Now she was here. "…how? How are you back? They said they had footage of you getting _spaced_."

She sighed. "Cerberus. They brought me back somehow."

He flinched back. He'd noticed the Cerberus seals on Jacob and Miranda's uniforms, but he hadn't thought… "_Cerberus_ did that? For _you_? I'd think you'd be the last person they'd want running around."

"Yeah, well, I'm also the only person who's seen and fought the Reapers, who are now sending the Collectors to abduct entire human colonies. Their boss didn't think I should go down so easily."

He agreed with that much, but he still didn't like this. Turian honor and human ideals mixed together could lead to some pretty serious implications in a life debt, especially one of this magnitude. He didn't like the idea of Cerberus using that to leverage his human. He knew that she wouldn't let them, that her own beliefs in galactic unity would never cow to their supremacist machinations, but…oh, spirits, what if they'd done something to her when they were restoring her? "Are you sure you're OK? They didn't—"

"No," she assured him, "no, I'm fine. Soon as I get the chance, I'm having Chakwas scan me just to make sure. They had to put in some cybernetics to keep me functioning, but I don't feel any different." She smiled. "It helps to have you back."

He smiled softly (that much was blissfully pain-free), taking her hand. But when he did, something occurred to him. For her, they'd been an item just a couple days ago. For him, he'd been struggling to move on for two years. How do you come back from that? Were they just supposed to pick up where they left off like nothing happened? Oh. Oh no. How could he tell her now that they were _mates_? He finally drew back, hoping she wouldn't be offended by how he let go of her hand. "I, uh…I should probably take some time to…process a few things, get settled in by the batteries."

She nodded as he turned to leave the room. "Right. You get to work, I'll see you when we get back."

Hearing that, he immediately stopped dead in his tracks and blocked the door from closing. "When you _what_?!" he exclaimed, leaning around the door to give her a look of sheer incredulity.

She winced. "We have to go back to Omega. There's a salarian scientist there who can help us with the mission."

He quickly stepped back in the doorway. "And you think I'm letting you go back _there _without me?"

She glared at him. "Garrus, you're still in recovery from a shot that nearly killed you and half that station wants you dead."

"Yeah, and _you're_ still in recovery from a shot that _did_ kill you. Besides, most of the people out to get me don't even know what I look like."

_"If I may," EDI cut in, "reports currently being passed around the mercenary bands indicate they seem to believe Archangel is dead."_

Garrus would ask who that was later. Right now, he simply gave Terra a look to show he had her in checkmate.

He really did. She groaned. "Fine. But I'm still not letting you out of my sight."

"Good to know you still care, Terra."

She smirked as she walked past him. "About you? How could I not?"

He watched her go, still smiling softly to himself. She really hadn't changed. He was starting to feel like himself again, knowing that he had her back.

Cerberus had come to their senses about the supply requirements involved in having a turian onboard and were currently requisitioning dextro-grade rations and medi-gel. While they were on Omega, they were limited to what they had salvaged from Garrus' base (and Terra was _definitely_ demanding the full story behind his recent exploits later), but Terra had enough faith in him given his history with operating on limited supplies that she figured they could make it work in the meantime. Jacob stayed behind to finish taking stock on the armory, so Miranda and Garrus followed Terra off the ship and towards their destination.

"Who exactly are we looking for?" Garrus asked as they started making their way past Afterlife to the tenements, "I might know something about him that wasn't in his file."

"Salarian geneticist," Terra answered, flashing the dossier on her omni-tool briefly, "Name's Mordin Solus."

Garrus took a second to remember where he'd heard that name. "Right. Former STG. Opened a clinic here not long ago."

"He might be able to help us get an edge on the Collectors if we can convince himself to help. We just gotta reach his clinic in the Gozu District."

Garrus outright stopped moving when he heard that, though he did catch himself quickly. "Uh, Terra? Now's probably too late to warn you, but—"

He didn't need to. She turned a corner out of the tenements and saw the door to the Gozu District closed off. By a quarantine. …crap.

"I told you to get lost, lady!" a turian standing guard at the door was snapping at a woman who was glaring at him, "There's a plague! No one goes in or out!"

"I'm human, you moron!" the woman snapped back, "Humans can't get the plague! Now let me in before looters get to my house!"

"This thing affects every other race out there! We're not taking any chances! I'm doing you a favor, the vorcha and the Blue Suns are killing every human they find!"

Terra turned to Garrus with a look of concern.

He sighed. "—but that."

Terra saw a lot of problems with this situation, but she elected to address them one at a time. If humans were really immune, there was nothing stopping her from going in, which meant the first obstacle was the guard blocking entry. That much she could handle. She quickly stepped in. "I need to get in there and find Mordin Solus."

"The doctor?" the guard responded, "I appreciate what he's trying to do, but we're not taking any risks. I'm under orders to hold here until this thing takes care of itself."

Omega was that cold? What was she saying, of course they were. She set aside her abhorrence for now, though, focusing on standing her ground. "Or you could let me get the doctor to fix it for you. I'm not letting a bunch of scavengers get in my way."

He shrugged. "Your funeral."

"Wait, you're stopping me but not them?!" the human woman demanded.

"You don't have a grenade launcher, lady. Get lost."

Well, that was one problem solved. On to the next.

"Let's go," Garrus said as they regrouped to head in.

That being the next. "Yeah, I don't think so," Terra quickly cut him off, "I've just had enough time waiting on you in the med bay to last a lifetime."

"Terra, if you need me, I'm not letting a cough slow me down."

"And I'm not risking your life if there's an alternative—like, say, another squad member who happens to be immune to the plague—waiting on the ship!"

He folded his arms at her. "I thought you weren't letting me out of your sight."

This problem, unfortunately, didn't have a clear solution. Terra had long ago learned that any argument between them would only give when one of them realized the other was right, they were both too stubborn to surrender. But, in this instance, they were technically _both_ right. Because they both couldn't stand the thought of leaving the other's side after so nearly losing them forever. She finally realized there was no talking him down from this and groaned. "Alright, but stay close." She was tempted to have him double back for some breathing gear, but the ship still didn't have any turian gear stocked and his helmet's respirator function had been damaged during the siege. She was just going to have to watch him and hope for the best.

If only you could shoot disease. She certainly had the aim for it.

At first, it was a simple "go in and shoot everything" kind of mission, which was right up their alley. Then they started seeing the telltale signs of plague—bodies, abandoned houses, the stench of stale air and sickness. The burning corpses in the road definitely didn't help that.

"Ugh," Miranda shook her head, "This isn't bothering either of you?"

Terra was bothered, actually, the scent of burning flesh all too familiar from the raid, but having Garrus right there to lean on made the difference she needed.

Garrus, on the other hand, shrugged it off. "Over the years, I've grown used to the smell of burning bodies." Then he realized what he'd just said when Terra and Miranda both looked at him. "…that's probably a bad sign, isn't it?"

Terra simply kept scanning the area. No more signs of hostility, but there was one sign of life. She rushed over to check on the batarian slumped against a nearby wall.

The batarian in question immediately looked at her and snarled. "Human. Bad enough you release this plague on us. Now you don't even have the courtesy to wait until I die before coming to steal my possessions."

She waved off the words, focused on looking him over. He was awfully weak, riddled with symptoms that it hurt to even look at. "Are you OK?" She started to—

"Get away from me!" he snapped, drawing a gun and making her flinch back, "I hope the vorcha kill you all. If only I had the strength to…I hope—" He started curling up with spastic coughs.

She quickly pulled out a medi-gel pack. "Hey! Stay with me! This won't cure the plague, but it might help."

It did. In a minute, he was back on his feet. "I…thank you."

She nodded. "Just wait here. I'm headed to Mordin's clinic, I'll send someone back for you." She turned to get back to hurrying in that direction when she noticed the astonished way Garrus was looking at her. "What?"

"Nothing," he said, "It's just…I never thought I'd see show that much mercy for a batarian."

Oh. Right. To be honest, she hadn't been thinking of people based on their species in years. She'd only ever seen the bad side of the batarians—Mindoir, Elysium, Terra Nova—but she didn't hold that against their entire race. As always, she was only out to help as many people as she could. Which was why they were here. She finally set the thoughts aside to head back to the mission, leading them down the passages in the direction of Mordin's clinic. It was only when they finished the next firefight that she realized something was wrong.

"Looks like we're in vorcha territory now," she observed, "We'll have to—" She stopped when she turned to checked the squad for injuries and noticed Garrus leaning against the wall. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he answered a bit too quickly, "I…is it hot in here or it just—" That's when he started coughing. "…oh…that's not good."

Naturally, Terra was at his side in his second, though there wasn't really anything she could do in this situation. "You couldn't have just gone back to the ship?! You'd better hope Mordin's got a cure!"

"You're angry when you're worried…" he shook his head at her even as he leaned on her to ease the way the room was spinning.

She kept leading them forward, checking Garrus as best she could every few steps. He'd been affected alarmingly fast. Luckily, she and Miranda really did seem to be immune, and Garrus' symptoms relaxed the next time a fight broke out and got the turian adrenaline pumping. He wasn't too bad yet, but she couldn't help but notice how his aim was off—a slight difference no one else would pick up on but more than enough to let her know he was worse than he was letting on. Which, in turn, was more than enough to get her to move a bit faster. She was relieved beyond words when they finally came in sight of the clinic, pushing her way past the mechs stationed at the front door and past the reception desk to the treatment room.

There stood a salarian with a few scars of his own and a broken horn.

She figured it was a safe bet this was the guy they were looking for. "Professor Mordin Solus?"

The salarian took a moment to size them up. His immediate response was to perform a medical scan and then, abruptly and dispassionately, jab a needle in Garrus' arm. "Turian physiology resilient. Simple immunobooster. Will be fine."

Garrus eyed the doctor warily, but the dizziness was wearing off already, so he stayed quiet.

Mordin then turned to Terra. "Now on to greetings. Human. Curious. Don't recognize you from area. No mercenary uniform. Quarantine still in effect. Here for something else. Vorcha? Crew to clean them out? Unlikely. Vorcha a symptom, not a cause."

Terra was barely keeping up with what he was saying as he rattled off an internal dialogue and fiddled with his machinery. "Uh—"

"The plague! Investigating possible use as bio-weapon? No, too many guns, not enough data equipment. Soldiers, not scientists!"

"Yes, we are, and I was kind of wanting to talk to you _myself_!"

He seemed to suddenly realize what he was doing and avert his attention back to her. "Ah. Yes. What can I do for you?"

"I'm Commander Terra Shepard. We're on a mission. We need your help."

"Mission? What mission? No, no, too busy. Clinic understaffed." He ducked down to sift through his supplies. "Who sent you?"

Terra hesitated to answer that one. "Uh…it's a covert and privately funded human group."

"Related to plague?" he immediately dove back into it, popping up from behind the table so fast that she jumped, "No, humans immune, human-centric interest. Spectres? Not human. Terra Firma? Too unstable. Only one option." He looked at her curiously. "Cerberus sent you. Unexpected."

She winced. "I take it you're familiar with them."

"Crossed paths on occasion. Thought they only worked with humans." He glanced at Garrus, who was now shaking off the last of the symptoms and sizing up the salarian. "Turian involvement surprising. Racial tension with humans."

"I'm not here for Cerberus," Garrus retorted, "I'm here for Terra. And this mission isn't just about human interests. We all need to work together to stop the Collectors."

Mordin took notice now. "Collectors? Interesting. Plague hitting slums is engineered. Collectors one of few groups with resources to manufacture. Our goals may be similar."

Terra couldn't help but wonder why the Collectors would want to test a plague, presumably a bio-weapon, on an Omega district. The fact it was being blamed on humans was likely part of it, given their focus on singling out humanity, but what were they really up to?

"But!" Mordin cut back in, "Must stop plague first! Already have cure, need to distribute it at environmental control center. Vorcha guarding it. …need to kill them."

Some part of Terra was groaning that nothing was ever simple, but she wasn't about to leave this entire district to collapse on itself from a sickness they could prevent. "I'll get in and deal with the vorcha."

That's when they heard the sound of vents closing down.

Garrus looked up in concern. "That wasn't a good noise."

Mordin checked his systems. "Vorcha have shut down vents. Trying to kill everyone. Need to reboot air filters before district suffocates."

Terra took the cure from his workbench. "Don't worry, doctor. We've got this. Let's move!"

It wasn't far to the environmental control center. The place was overrun with vorcha, some of which had heavy weapons on the high ground, but they were perfectly equipped for this—Miranda to wear down defenses so Terra could clear the main floor while Garrus sniped the ones up top. EDI had already taken the liberty of hacking in to the system to give them directions, so it didn't take much to reinitialize the systems. Then it was just a matter of going to the lower floors to jump-start the fans. Again, vorcha were in wait around every corner. Again, they proved no match for Commander Shepard and her crew. It wasn't easy, but it was a walk in the park compared to Ilos.

"Vents online," Mordin observed when they came back to the clinic, "Cure spreading, vorcha retreating. Well done, Shepard. Thank you."

Terra nodded. "It was the least I could do. You ready for an adventure, doctor?"

Mordin seemed to smile. "Of course. Looking forward to it."

Terra found she was looking forward to it, too. This salarian certainly knew what he was doing and his speed of thought was both impressive and amusing. She wanted a crew like this, not like Cerberus. This was what made the _Normandy_ hers. So she started leading them all out of the Gozu District and back towards the docks.

But while Terra and Miranda were taking Mordin back to the ship, Garrus slipped away. He wouldn't get the chance to come back here anytime soon and he only had as much time as it would take them to debrief Mordin and show him to the tech lab (or possibly more, since Terra mentioned something about a message from a mercenary willing to meet them at the docking bay). Garrus moved cautiously back towards the Kima District, nonchalantly covering the golden wings etched on his arm when he passed by a few roaming mercenaries he didn't have the time or inclination to tangle with. Coming back to his base after what happened there was hard, but he did it. He tried his best not to look at the devastation or where the bodies of his teammates had fallen, focusing solely on what he'd come for. When he had it in hand, he moved with even more caution back towards the docks and to the _Normandy_.

He'd only opened the airlock when he found Terra glaring at him with her arms folded. "All that talk about me not letting you out of my sight and you sneak off on me?! Where'd you go?!"

He sighed. Only way out of this one was the truth. "Back to the base."

"What?! What if the mercs had gone back and started torching it or something?!"

"That's why I had to go back. …I couldn't leave _this_ behind." He stepped aside to pull his cargo into view. His cargo being her box.

She could count on one hand the number of times in her life she'd been rendered speechless, but this topped them all. "…Garrus, you…" Utterly stunned, she knelt down to bring the box closer and open it. Everything was there. As well as her pack. The pack she'd left in her cabin on the first _Normandy_, still holding her sketchbook and pencil case. Holding that in her hands again nearly brought her to tears. "I thought I lost it."

He shook his head. "I couldn't leave any of this behind. …it was all I had left of you."

His reasons broke her heart, but having these things back in her hands meant far more. Far more than she could express…except one way. Finally, she put everything back in the box and closed it so she could stand up and kiss him. "Thank you."

He stood there frozen, watching her take the box up to her cabin. She had meant it as a sign of gratitude, but the gesture still made his heart warm. It was only when he was back in the battery later and felt for the first time this new _Normandy_ taking off that he remembered some things had changed.

He had taken a few too many risks in the past two years as it was. He wasn't about to risk her.


	39. Decisions

Chapter 39: Decisions

The one thing we cannot run from is fear  
Love is the one thing we cannot hide  
The only thing that can truly destroy us  
Is when the two collide

Terra liked to think she'd found the one mercenary on Omega she'd enjoy the company of when they brought Zaeed Massani aboard. All the gruff veteran seemed to care about was getting the job done, but he had some interesting stories to share and some skills that would prove invaluable to the mission. Maybe before this was over, she could even win him over a bit more than a paycheck.

His price involved a bit more than credits, though. A former associate, Vido Santiago, that had once tried to kill him had seized control of a refinery on Zorya and started using the workers as slave labor. That was all Terra needed to hear to adjust their course straight for the garden world in question. Everything was going well, too, until Zaeed let it get personal. Opening fire on Santiago the second he saw him was one thing. _Causing_ a fire was quite another. It was all Terra could do not to hit him for endangering so many lives like that, but he got his comeuppance from her diverting the mission to free the workers. The unfortunate consequence of this diversion, however, was Santiago getting away.

That and a furious Zaeed immediately setting off another explosion and trapping him under a girder. "Shepard! Get me out of this thing!"

Terra didn't. "I don't think so. I don't appreciate being lied to. You said we were coming to free slaves, not for your own personal vendetta."

"Fine!" Zaeed growled, "But I can still do the job. What I was paid for—no more, no less."

Now he was talking like a mercenary. Terra wasn't having that either. "I need people I can rely on, not people only interested in credits." Then again, she had Cerberus crewmen, but she also had Garrus and now Mordin, so it was beside the point.

"You can't just leave me here!"

"So you admit you need my help now? Why don't you admit I'm the one in charge while you're at it? I get you're used to working alone, but there's more at stake here than one despicable man living another day. We need each other to pull this off. That's the only deal I'm interested in."

Zaeed was a stubborn guy. But Terra was even more hardheaded than he was when she put her mind to it. He couldn't fight her on this forever. "…you're right. I'm all in. Just get me out of here."

That she could accept. So she helped him out and led him back to the shuttle, calling their mission a success and Zaeed a full team member. Zaeed was clearly still upset his mark got away, but he was calming down with every second, as if there was a chance he could let it go, for now at least. Terra was content to believe Zaeed wouldn't prove so difficult from this point forward.

Garrus, on the other hand, she wasn't so sure about. He'd been right behind her the whole time, as usual, but he'd barely said two words for the entire mission. All through the shuttle ride back to the ship, he was looking pensively out the window. Even once they were back onboard, he stayed quiet as he went back to the crew deck. Terra figured there was something bothering him and she should give him some time to himself before checking in on him.

Next, they went to a prison ship called _Purgatory _to pick up a biotic by the name of Jack. Surprise, surprise, the warden turned out to be a barefaced traitor (literally, actually). The biotic herself, on the other hand, proved a force to be reckoned with, tossing swaths of mercenaries across entire deck without touching a single one and not even slowing down. It was only when Terra caught up to her and shot down the last mercenary for her that she finally stopped.

"Who are you?" Jack sneered.

Terra scoffed as she holstered her pistol. "You're welcome."

Jack shook her head. "He was already dead. He just didn't know it yet. Now _who are you_?"

"My name's Commander Shepard. I'm here to get you out."

Jack scoffed, nodding to the docks. "You show up in a Cerberus ship to take me away somewhere? What do you think I am, stupid?!"

Terra was set seething by that comment. "Cerberus may have built it, but it's _my_ ship. And since it's the only way you have off of this station that's _going down on flames_, I'd suggest you take it."

Jack was clearly still suspicious, but she seemed a bit less so after hearing that comment. "…make you a deal. Cerberus probably has a lot of files on me. Let me see them, and I'll come with you."

Terra wasn't sure she had clearance to do that, but she didn't really care. Frankly, if it upset Cerberus, it was kind of a bonus. "I'll give you full access."

"You'd better be straight with me," Jack all but threatened, "I've been cheated too many times. _Especially_ by Cerberus."

Terra thought she was gonna be glad to take this biotic onto her team, unstable or no. The more people she had who knew what Cerberus was really like, the better. That'd make it even easier when they inevitably turned on them.

"So what are we standing around for?" Jack finally asked.

Terra smirked and led her aboard.

Jack went down to the cargo hold below engineering. Garrus went back to his own station in silence. Terra was beginning to suspect there was more to that particular issue than she'd thought.

Their next stop was the Citadel. Ostensibly, they were headed there to pick up their next recruit, a thief by the name of Kasumi Goto, but Terra was intent on speaking with the Council while they were there. She mainly wanted to see Anderson again, but she might as well tell the Council what was going on and see if they were willing to do anything to help out.

She doubted it, but it was worth a shot.

Kasumi met up with them through a hacked advertisement terminal. That alone showed that her hacking skills and stealth techniques were extraordinary, so Terra figured she'd be a valuable addition. She was a bit upset to hear Cerberus had arranged for her to join the thief on a heist in return for her help and hadn't thought to warn the commander ahead of time (seriously, that was two of the last three they hadn't given her all the details for—was it because she gave that big ultimatum about them playing by her rules and all that?). After hearing what this particular heist meant to the thief, Terra agreed to go along with it. That should prove interesting, she figured.

"If we're done here…" Startled, Terra turned to see the thief herself standing on a keeper walkway overhead and looking down at them. "…we should probably wrap it up. You look pretty silly standing there, talking to advertisement."

Terra smirked. Thief or no, she already knew she was going to like hanging around with Kasumi Goto. "You know where you're headed?"

"Oh, I've already started sneaking my things aboard your ship. I'll fetch the rest now and meet you at the dock." So she turned to go, literally disappearing by activating a cloak as she walked away.

Before heading back to the ship, though, Terra headed up to the Presidium to talk to the Council. A meeting which, coincidentally, happened to take place in Anderson's office.

Anderson smiled the second she walked in, amazement and relief buried behind his eyes. "Shepard."

The soldier in her was fighting to maintain her decorum, but since she wasn't currently an Alliance soldier anyway, she wound up rushing over to hug him.

He started laughing. "Good to see you haven't changed."

She laughed briefly before leaning back. "Likewise." Then she looked at his uniform and remembered his new position. "Well…you know what I mean."

She wanted to take some time to catch up, but it was going to have to come second. He was already connecting the Council to them via holo-COMM. Suffice to say, they didn't seem as happy to see her.

"We called this meeting to give you a chance to explain yourself, Shepard," the asari Councilor stated, "It seemed only fair given that we owe your our lives."

It was nice to see they were remembering that, but she didn't like the idea of her having to "explain herself." "What do you mean?"

"There are rumors going around that you're working with Cerberus."

Oh, spirits. Who started _that_?! She was putting an end to this now. "Cerberus were the ones who brought me back and gave me a new ship, but I'm _not _working for them. They're giving me the resources I need to stop the Collectors, resources I'll be happy to turn down if the Alliance or the Council were willing to back me up instead."

"These attacks have been occurring in the Terminus Systems," the salarian Councilor spoke up, "outside our jurisdiction."

"But the Collectors won't stay there forever! They're working for the Reapers!"

"Ah, yes," the turian Councilor practically rolled his eyes, "'Reapers.' The race of sentient machines allegedly waiting in dark space. Ah, we have dismissed that claim."

Terra was starting to see why Garrus ran away to Omega. "You can't be serious."

"They are, Shepard," Anderson sighed, "You and your team were the only ones who spoke to Sovereign or saw Vigil on Ilos. As far as the rest of the galaxy is concerned, the Reapers are a myth Saren exploited to win over the geth."

"Oh, so Saren suddenly went from an anti-human extremist to a galactic domination schemer straight out of some lame action vid? After all I've done for this Council—_for the galaxy_—don't you think you all owe me enough to _think it through_ instead of letting fear and uncertainty shut me down?!"

"Try to see this from our perspective, commander," the asari Councilor asserted, "Even if we could support your theories, you have still consorted with Cerberus, a known enemy of this Council. That is an act of treason."

Now she was mad. Because, no, stealing the _Normandy_ had been an act of treason, one that was quickly forgiven; what Cerberus had done to her was quite the opposite. "They roped me into it, I didn't have a choice!"

"That's enough!" Anderson finally stepped in, "I'm on this Council, too, and I won't let this whitewash continue! Shepard is a hero!"

The asari Councilor, thankfully, saw reason. "Then perhaps there is another solution. A way to offer peripheral support while still remaining unaffiliated."

The turian Councilor, for once, didn't object. "Shepard, if you agree to confine your operations to the Terminus Systems, the Council is willing to reinstate your Spectre status."

She didn't like being restricted, but being a Spectre again was worth it. She was meant to fight for the whole galaxy, not just for humanity. And she would. So she gratefully accepted the offer and that was the end of that.

"Well," Anderson sighed after they disconnected, "that went better than I expected."

"I was hoping it'd go better," Terra shook her head before walking over to the balcony with him and looking out at the rest of the Presidium, "Thanks for standing up for me."

"Yeah. Serving on the Council wasn't how I expected to spend my twilight years, but I'm trying to do as much good as I can. I can only go so far, though."

Terra spent the better part of ten minutes talking with her old mentor while Garrus and Mordin (mostly Mordin) talked in the opposite corner. It was nice getting to do that again. She had missed him. By the time she figured they should be getting back to it, she had already thought about when next she could come back.

"Be careful out there, Shepard," Anderson told her as she was turning to go.

She smirked. "Don't tell me you're afraid I'll die again _that_ soon."

He laughed briefly. "No. …but Cerberus can't be trusted."

She nodded. "I know. And they never will be." She kept the warning in mind, though. There was something about hearing it from another human, one she genuinely trusted, that seemed to make it real and not just a product of her turian background.

"Where did you sneak off to?" a smirking Kasumi asked from the shadows as they approached the ship.

Terra nearly jumped. She'd have to get used to that if the thief spent so long cloaked. "Had to see an old friend. You're not gonna keep that cloak up forever, are you?"

"Only most of the time."

"…joy."

When they got back on the ship, Terra set up the heading for Bekenstein, but she did also take the time to watch her squad. Mordin headed straight back to the tech lab, already muttering something about experiment results he needed to check. Kasumi uncloaked in the middle of the CIC since she couldn't hide that someone was boarding the elevator, her sudden appearance making several techs comically jump, and headed down to set herself up in the portside observation lounge on deck 3.

And Garrus followed, once again heading straight to the battery without a word.

Terra had finally had enough. Once she was clear to leave the CIC, she headed straight for the main battery herself, all but storming in. "Garrus, we need to talk."

"Can it wait for a bit?" he immediately asked, "I'm in the middle of—"

"No, it really can't!" Terra stormed over now, practically pushing him away from the console to slam her hand on the controls. The door sealed behind her and the algorithms he was going over minimized. "EDI, give us a minute."

Once the AI had disabled the monitors on the battery, Garrus turned to give Terra a concerned look. "Is something wrong?"

"You tell me. You're the one who's been avoiding me."

"I…what?"

"Don't play coy! That's three dockings in a row you've outright ignored me and come straight back here to bury yourself in the gun software! We haven't talked _at all_ since we left Omega! I only see you on missions now and you won't even look at me! Everything was fine until…until I…" Until she kissed him in the airlock. Oh, spirits, she hadn't even thought of that. Saying the words out loud coupled with that sudden bombshell realization—it was getting to be too much for her. Ordinarily, she would fight off the emotions overwhelming her, but now…now the tears came before she could stop them. "Is there someone else? Or do you just not feel that way about me? Because I'll understand, I just…I can't keep this up anymore, knowing the one person I most care about doesn't wanna be near me."

He hadn't been anticipating she would take it this hard. Hearing that it was so bad she was making assumptions like _that_ was more than he could take. "No. Terra, no, it's not like that."

"What is it, then? You've never been like this before."

"Well, this is a pretty unique situation! I just thought you needed time to figure things out. I just…I just still can't believe this is really happening. I spent so long failing to get used to the idea of living in a world without you in it and then suddenly you're _back_, and…" Like her, it was only now that he said it out loud that it really struck him. He'd known his reasons, but telling them to her… "…I'm scared."

She could understand all of his reservations, but _that_ confession shocked her. He was _scared_? Garrus Vakarian, who didn't know the meaning of the word? "Why?"

He scoffed. "Why do you think? I mean, we were all but inseparable for 13 years and it never once occurred to us that we could ever be anything more. Then, when it finally did, _you died_. And now that you've come back, lo and behold, we're on a _suicide mission_. It feels like we're cursed, like the universe is working against us, and if we keep trying to fight it, it's gonna keep finding ways to tear us apart." He looked at her, the one fear he couldn't fight away clutching him at the mere sight of her after so long living without her. "I can't lose you again."

She felt like she should've known this was how he felt. Seeing him this way and hearing him admit it, though, hurt her. Suddenly, she felt worse for dying and leaving him to the grief than she did for…well, dying. She sighed, realizing she was going to have to comfort him where he'd always done so for her. "Alright. Two things. First of all, be honest. If I died again trying to stop the Collectors and you weren't with me, would you feel any better?"

He dreaded even considering the possibility, but she had asked him to. The past two years had been hard enough on him, but if he had to face it again knowing that he had let fear drive him away…knowing what they could've had… "…no. No, that'd be worse."

She nodded. "And two…do you really think I haven't been going through the same thing?"

That he hadn't been expecting. He looked at her, too stunned to voice his sympathy.

"I lost two years of my life, Garrus. And when I came back, they told me you were _missing_! Do you have any idea what that felt like?! Then when I found you…" The wounds were too fresh, too much weight for her already tear-filled eyes. Every time she closed them, she thought of her turian lying in a pool of his own cobalt blood, barely breathing, slipping away from her, a nightmare almost on par with the raid itself. Her fingers drifted up to his recently acquired scars, not making contact as if touching them would make them bleed again.

He reached up to lay his hand on hers, pressing it against the scars himself.

Her breath caught to feel the cracks in his plates. It wasn't right. Any of it. But she could still feel his warmth and that gave her the strength to say what she needed to. "I didn't just lose two years either. I lost two years _with you_. And I don't wanna lose one more second." She drew all of her fire and determination to meet his eyes, letting him see the truth behind her final confession: "I love you."

For a moment, he simply looked at her. He had read it in her message so many times, but hearing her voice say it was something else entirely. She said it with such emotion, such conviction, that there was no denying the truth behind it. Those three little words pushed aside all his fear in favor of an unmatched elation that made it harder to breathe when he looked at her and harder for his heart to keep its rhythm when he looked away.

Finally, he took hold of her and drew her in, kissing her as best he could to make up for all those lost days. He hadn't done it in two years, but he still knew how. He hadn't forgotten one second of his time with her. This was pretty hard to forget. She clung to him, fell into him, and he knew that, human or turian, dead or alive, she was the only one who could ever make him feel this way. She was his mate, after all.

When they separated, he stayed close, laying his head on hers. "I love you, too."

Some part of her had known this, but hearing those words on his voice made her heart leap, her sorrowful tears immediately switching to joy. She didn't want to let go now. She wanted to forget the world and fall into her turian completely. Looking back now, she wondered how she could ever have not known he held her heart. Anyone could see they were meant for each other. Always.

He held onto her, feeling her pulse under his talons and at long last chasing off the grief that had torn into him for so long. She was here with him. They were together again. It was as if all the lights had suddenly grown brighter and the hollowness inside him was filled. "What do we do now?"

She smiled. "We'll figure it out."

He smirked. "We always do."

They stayed there together as long as they could before the mission inevitably interrupted. As Terra turned to leave the room, though, she held onto his hand as long as possible, still relishing the phantom caress of his talons on her skin as she walked away.

Whatever happened now, this moment had been worth it.


	40. Thievery

Chapter 40: Thievery

Of all things that can be stolen  
The heart is the only one that cannot be returned

Kasumi remarkably managed to go through the entirety of the mission briefing in the skycar before outright asking "So what's the deal with you and the turian?" with a very suggestive smirk.

Terra groaned and rolled her eyes. If this was the real reason Kasumi had been so insistent on going on this mission with just the two of them, she was going to be really upset. Not least because it had taken nearly an hour to convince Garrus to stay back, especially after their heart-to-heart, their reinstatement as a couple, and him seeing the getup Kasumi had forced her into (she really didn't want to know how Kasumi got a dress in her size that quickly, and she would want to make the thief pay dearly for it if not for the way Garrus had looked at her while she had it on making her want to keep it on hand for him).

Kasumi wasn't one to give up easy. She was practically nudging Terra when she asked again. "Come on. We can talk."

Terra scoffed. "I've known you less than one day and I've already heard you gathering gossip on half the crew. I'm not gonna be your next 'topic of conversation.'"

Kasumi smirked. "I'm gonna find out either way. I just wanted to be polite."

Terra sighed. "If you must know, I used to live on Palaven with Garrus' family. We've been practically joined at the hip ever since."

"Really? You're the most interesting person I've met so far, Shep."

"'Shep'? I'm not a dog."

"Don't tell me no one else has ever given you a nickname."

"Yeah, yeah, just watch where you're parking."

Almost immediately, they met with difficulties, Hock himself coming out to insist Kasumi stay outside. Kasumi addressed this by simply remaining cloaked and following Terra from the shadows, guiding her through disabling the security on the elevator down to the vault. Terra was willing to admit the whole "Saren statue" thing made her uneasy, but there was a kind of poetic irony to the statue carrying her weapons and armor into the place. After that, it was all downhill. The second they actually found the greybox, they were under fire. Kasumi did an amazing job in the fights that followed, putting her cloak to use to arrange an elaborate series of sneak attacks while Terra was simply shooting everyone down. Terra found herself catching onto Kasumi's enthusiasm and finesse, showing off some trick shots and CQC maneuvers that seemed to impress the thief. Suddenly, they were basically one-upping each other, a competition Kasumi undoubtedly won by clambering up some pipes to jump with acrobatic grace onto Hock's gunship to disable its shields before leaping back onto the battlefield with prowess and flair. Terra would've called her out for showing off if she hadn't been so impressed and if Kasumi didn't then proceed to let her have the kill-shot on the gunship. On the way back to the ship, it was a matter of decrypting the greybox. Kasumi quickly found a message from Keiji himself asking her to destroy it, a demand she quickly refused because she couldn't lose the last of her love.

Seeing Kasumi's struggle over erasing the greybox stuck with Terra. Even after she agreed that erasing it wasn't necessary, it hurt her to think of her own love being lost, of a few captured memories being all she had left of Garrus. It already seemed like that was all she had left of her birth family, and she couldn't bear to think of it happening to her adopted one. So when she finally got back on the ship, she headed straight up to her cabin to change back from her armor to the dress Kasumi had forced her into just long enough to call up Garrus. They didn't talk this time so much as kiss each other senseless (with a few intervals for Garrus to appreciate how she looked in formal wear), and they did it for as long as they could before Terra eventually had to swap back into more casual civvies (yes, she was on duty, but there was _no way_ she was wearing a uniform with a Cerberus emblem on it) and set the course for their next destination: Korlus.

The planet was full of mercenaries and krogan. There was one krogan they were interested in—a warlord by the name of Okeer. It wasn't easy fighting their way through krogan after krogan, but if it meant getting a krogan of their own again, even one that wasn't Wrex, it would be worth the trouble. Okeer himself insisted on bringing along his latest "baby," a krogan still in its birth tank. That presented a problem when the merc leader started flushing the tanks, forcing Terra to head down and kill her. When they came back, they discovered Okeer had sacrificed himself to keep the tank unaffected. Terra figured that meant all they could do was bring the tank itself aboard. Miranda wasn't happy, but that basically convinced Terra that she had to, even though she understood the apprehension.

Now it was down to opening the tank.

EDI was quick to warn her there would be consequences, but she knew how to handle krogan. So she opened the tank. The krogan tumbled out in a wash of fluids before collecting himself. He took one look at her…

…and charged right at her, pinning her to the wall. "Human. Female. Before you die, I need a name."

Terra quickly made use of her newly-cybernetic strength to push him off enough for her to breathe. "Commander Terra Shepard, and I don't take threats lightly! I suggest you back off while you still can!"

"Not your name," he scoffed, "Mine. I am trained, I know things, but the tank…Okeer couldn't impart connection. His words are hollow. 'Warlord.' 'Legacy.' 'Grunt.' …Grunt. 'Grunt' was among the last. It has no meaning it'll do." He stood with new purpose now, his grip on her not tightening or loosening even as he offered his challenge. "I am Grunt. If you are worthy, prove your strength and face me."

She took a moment to size him up (a long moment since there was so much of him to size up). He was tough, young, and strong. And a krogan. Just what they needed. But he wouldn't be so useful if she had to break him in two to subdue him (or vice versa…), so it was time to put her persuasion skills to the test. "You want to fight? Fight _for_ me, not against me. We can prove ourselves to each other far better that way."

He considered her curiously. "If you're weak or choose weak enemies, I'll have to kill you."

She scoffed. "Believe me, on this ship, we don't settle for second best."

"Hmm…hmph. That is acceptable. I will fight for you."

Terra smirked. "Glad you saw reason."

"What?" Grunt then heard the sound of a gun collapsing and turned to see Garrus standing behind him, lowering his weapon. The krogan looked between the human and the turian for a moment before smirking, stepping back from pinning Terra to the wall, and letting off a small laugh. "Offer one hand but arm the other. Wise, Shepard." He then went back over to his tank.

Terra eyed him carefully before stepping over to Garrus. "So you just heard 'Shepard's opening the tank' and raced down here with a gun?"

Garrus smirked. "Couldn't hurt. Don't act like you didn't know I would."

Terra smiled as she walked back towards the elevator with him. "Well, that was the last of the dossiers and I haven't heard from Mr. Illusive in a while, so it looks like we have some time to catch up."

Garrus nodded. "That's a plan I don't mind sticking to."

Terra and Garrus simply sat on the floor of her cabin for about three hours, bouncing between both of them reminiscing the good old days and Garrus relaying the tale of his Archangel days. It was a good thing they were bouncing, or Terra might have been bothered by his tale. She knew he could take care of himself, but she didn't like the idea of him seeking out danger…or to think of how lost he'd been without her. Nevertheless, it was only when he came towards the end of the tale that they both fell silent.

They both knew how it ended. He didn't want to tell her how that ending came about. She didn't know if she wanted to hear. But they both knew she had to hear it anyway. So he took a deep breath and let it out: Sidonis had lured him away from the base so the mercs could bomb it. Garrus hadn't seen him since.

Terra felt heartbroken for him when she heard this. He'd been _betrayed_. That wasn't something you just shook off. It also wasn't something she'd experienced (well, just yet, but since she was _expecting_ it from Cerberus, that wasn't the same thing), so she had no idea how to console him. "Garrus, I…I'm so sorry. He had no right to do that to you."

He didn't look at her. This wound was still fresh. It hurt just to talk about it. "He didn't just do it to me. He did it to all of us. Because of him, ten good men are dead."

She wasn't sure if she should take his hand and kiss him to remind him she was there or stay back. She settled on the middle ground of drawing one inch closer to him. "And you're sure they didn't just take him out first?"

Garrus shook his head. "No. I did some digging. He cleared his accounts and booked transport off the station just before the attack. He sold me out and ran."

She couldn't imagine anyone doing something like that to her turian. Part of her wanted to hunt down this Sidonis guy and give him a piece of her mind, but it wouldn't change the fact that the damage had already been done. Ten people Garrus had fought beside for three times as long as the SR-1 squad were dead. It was because of that that Archangel had been pinned down and hunted for _days_ before ultimately getting struck by that gunship.

Softly, she reached to gently stroke his scars. They had healed enough in the past few days that touching them didn't send flares of pain through him anymore, so both of them were free to appreciate how calming and enticing the gesture was. "Well…think of it this way: now we're even for Mindoir."

He smirked, thankful the scars had healed enough to allow him to do that pain-free as well. "More or less. I wish I could say joining this crew was the same as you joining my family."

"Oh, I'm working on it," she commented, adopting a more smug position, "Give me a few weeks and I'll have the Cerberus crew turning over and the squad up to SR-1 standards."

"I can't really say I doubt you. …you're the kind of person people can't help but love."

That was the first time in a long time he'd said something that legitimately flattered her beyond the capacity for rebuttal. "…stop."

"I mean it. Tali and Liara would agree. Even Ashley and Solana would. Wrex probably would, too, but he would never say so out loud."

She laughed at that one.

Just hearing her laugh made him smile. "I know there are people out there who don't think of you as all that special…but if they just took the time to know you…" He reached out to her, his talon stroking her hair again. "…if they could see you like I do…"

She smiled playfully. "I wouldn't want anyone else to see me quite the way you do, Garrus."

Suddenly, Sidonis' betrayal was the last thing on his mind. All he could think about was the way he did see Terra Shepard. "No, I guess I wouldn't either."

She leaned into him, once again tracing his scars with her fingers as if it was already perfectly natural simply because she saw the way he reacted. "You're stuck with me then. And I'm stuck with a thief."

He gave her a more confused look then. "Why are we talking about Kasumi now?"

"No, no, we're still talking about you. You just so happened to have stolen something very precious to me." She laid her head on his with a more contented smile. "My heart."

He smiled back. "I wish I could say I would be willing to give it back."

"I wouldn't want you to anyway. Too busy trying to take yours."

"Believe me, you've had it for a long time."

Hearing that from him sparked such joy inside her that she outright took hold of him and kissed him, reveling in the way he returned it and held her closer. It may have been a strictly human show of affection, but that didn't stop them both from pouring their stolen hearts into the embrace. By the time they separated, Garrus was certain humans were superior to turians in terms of their romantic gestures. But turians were likely superior in terms of how their relationships progressed. Maybe this was the perfect time to tell her that she was his—

"I wonder what your parents and Sol would say if they could see us now," she commented with a snicker.

That's when he realized. _…oh, crap._ She didn't know. He had to tell her. _He_ had to tell her. "Ah, spirits." He forced himself to do it, though. He turned to face her and came out with it: "Terra, there's something you need to know."

She looked at him uncertainly. Those weren't typically good words to hear. "…what?"

It was too late to duck out now, no matter how much he couldn't bear to say it. Having her back had taken his mind off of it until now, but he had to face it again. She needed to know. She was family, after all. "…Mom is sick."

She wished those words wouldn't sink in, but they did. It felt like Cerberus had pieced her nerves together wrong and they'd suddenly stopped working. "She…she's what?"

"Sol called me before I left the Citadel. It was diagnosed as the early stages of Corpalis."

…_no…_ This couldn't be happening. She'd already lost her own mother, she couldn't lose Garrus' now. And this demise would be so much harder, so much longer… Then she did the math. "Wait, that…that was nearly two years ago now. Are you sure—?"

"It doesn't progress that fast," he assured her, "I haven't called home since that last day at the base, but…it's coming up on the later stages now. She's running out of time if we can't find some treatment."

There had to be a treatment somewhere. There was no such thing as untreatable disease in this day and age. She would turn over every rock in the galaxy just for a chance. "Well, is there anything we can do? I can strong-arm Cerberus to start pushing some of those resurrection-level funds to some galactic CDC projects—"

"Don't bother. The salarians are doing all the research and the treatments. It's still going slow, though. And expensive."

"We can still do something about it. We can talk to Mordin about opening some channels, start funneling credits home from what's left of the mission funds or whatever we find groundside—"

"Terra, I hate to admit it, but this might not be a battle we can win that easily."

"We have to try! I've lost enough family for one lifetime!"

He knew better than to argue with that one. He had been fighting to hold onto his own hope on the subject, but Terra wouldn't give up. He couldn't blame her after what happened to her own parents. She hadn't known she was going to lose them, hadn't had to face this dread, but if there was even the slightest possibility she could avoid facing it again, could spare him and Solana that pain, she would take it. The truth was, so would he. "Alright. We'll talk to Mordin. We'll work something out."

Terra took his hand. "We _will_, Garrus. …we will."

He had spent no small amount of time pondering the impossibility of somehow averting his mother's fate, but looking in Terra's eyes now…he couldn't deny her. "…we will."

_"Commander," EDI finally came over the PA, "the Illusive Man wishes to speak with you in the debriefing room."_

Terra sighed. She'd just found out her adopted family had been falling apart while she was gone, she wasn't really in the right emotional state to talk to her least-favorite terrorist. Mission came first, though, and there were colonies in danger. So she braced herself to get back on her feet and head in. "I'm on my way."

Garrus got up with her. "Whatever happens, I'm right here. I'm not leaving you for anything."

That meant a lot. She gave him a grateful smile before leading him to the elevator. "I'm holding you to that. And I'm doing my best to do the same for you."

Five minutes later, they were racing towards Horizon, supposedly the next colony that would be attacked. As usual, Garrus was right behind her, already prepared for a fight. She figured this would be a good use of their new krogan friend and called him up to join them. Mordin was in the process of applying his seeker swarm countermeasure to everyone's armor, so Terra took just enough time to let him know there was a salarian research project they wanted to help however they could, receiving what seemed like a promise to look into it before the scientist turned his attention to Grunt. They couldn't do anything else until Horizon was safe, so now it was just a matter of getting there in time. While they waited, Terra and Garrus were constantly sending supportive looks to each other, even occasionally joining hands to show it. Life kept throwing obstacles their way, but they both knew they could face it all together.

Whatever came next, that wouldn't change.


	41. New Horizons

**Review reply: Arodri and lordheistra222, for reasons that will be explained in a couple chapters, it's gonna be a while, but I WILL write the family reunion, don't worry. :)**

Chapter 41: New Horizons

I am not defined by my tragedies  
I am defined by those who helped me overcome them

From the second they landed, Terra felt like they were already too late. The colony was too quiet, the invading ship a grim presence, the sky flecked with seeker swarms. It wasn't hopeless—the Citadel had been just as bad off when they took down Sovereign—but this was different. She knew what it was like to watch helplessly as the colony she called home fell apart. She used that. She had to stop this.

With Garrus and Grunt behind her, she was pretty confident they were ready for anything. When they saw their first Collectors, she got to know the face of their enemy. As well as she could before Garrus shot that face repeatedly. She couldn't blame him, considering these were the same monsters that killed her. Frankly, it only took a matter of two seconds before she was doing the same. Then it was a matter of two seconds before Grunt roared and charged in, bowling them all down. Turned out bringing the krogan was the correct answer.

If only the rest of the mission was so simple.

_"Commander—" Joker's voice cut through the COMM after a moment, "—getting all kinds—interference—can't maintain—"_

Garrus took a moment to check their COMMS. "The Collectors are disrupting communications."

Terra sighed. "Guess we're on our own."

The very next corner they turned, though, they found an even bigger problem to worry about. A squadron of Collectors flew in, and right as the fight was about to break out, one of them suddenly writhed and glowed before bursting with power. "**We are Harbinger.**"

_And we are taking cover,_ Terra winced, pulling Garrus behind a crate and signaling Grunt to follow suit just as the empowered Collector opened fire on them with what looked like blasts of dark energy. She didn't wanna know how they were doing this, she just knew they needed to be stopped. So they focused fire on the big guy. It was tougher than the others, but it went down just the same. Which was a mistake. The inevitable reinforcements brought another one. She _really_ didn't wanna know how they were doing this. When the squad finally managed to take down this batch of Collectors, she thought it was best for them to hurry towards the next area.

The term that could best describe what the Collectors were doing in this village would definitely be "nightmare fuel." It didn't take long for the squad to stumble upon some of the colonists being watched over by the swarms. Said colonists, they quickly determined, were paralyzed but _fully aware_. By the time that effect wore off, they'd all be sealed in those pods and dragged onto the ship. Terra finally figured it was best for her to not think about it that way and for them to keep hurrying before that could happen.

After clearing a few more Collector squadrons, they found their way into a panic shelter where a mechanic was hiding. A mechanic with some good news and some bad news, though he might have been convinced it was the other way around.

The good news was that the Alliance had installed some defense towers that could easily batter that Collector ship if they could just get the targeting system online.

The bad news was that _Ashley Williams_ was the one the Alliance had sent to install them and there was no sign of her.

Now Terra _knew_ they had to hurry.

So hurry they did. They raced through the last section, one notably devoid of any more colonists in seeker stasis due to their proximity to the ship, and straight to the field containing the targeting computers for the GARDIAN batteries. Exactly Garrus' forte. Terra and Grunt held off the husks and other abominations being sent their way long enough for Garrus to hack the system, shut down the jammers, and connect EDI to the GARDIANs. Everything was going well until the Collectors realized what they were up to. Then it was a matter of holding their ground as husks and Collectors and those "Harbinger" freaks flooded them from all sides. And just when they thought they were clear, the big guns came out. Luckily, Terra had some big guns of her own in the form of a flamethrower she'd grabbed on Zorya. This monstrosity didn't fall easily, but it fell just the same. As soon as it did, the batteries came online and the Collector ship was under fire.

And just as quickly, the ship took off.

Terra had been holding it in so far, but seeing that ship take off with all the colonists aboard nearly broke her. She couldn't save them. Now they were going to suffer.

Just like Mindoir.

When that mechanic came running up and demanded they do something, it just made it worse for her. He knew those people. She couldn't imagine what it would be like for him and the other survivors now. She didn't want to try to imagine what it would be like for the ones that didn't survive.

Garrus was right behind her, though, and he saw how much this was affecting her. He was right there to take her side and let her know she had done enough.

"It was a good fight, Shepard," Grunt agreed.

"Shepard?" the mechanic perked up, "Wait, I know that name." He turned to face her again. "Right. Some type of big Alliance hero, right?"

"_The_ Alliance hero." All eyes turned to see Ashley Williams herself standing there.

Terra smiled now. This was the first time she was seeing one of her old squad-mates alive and well since she came back (besides Garrus and Tali, of course). There was a special kind of relief to be gained from it.

After the mechanic stormed off in a huff, Ashley approached carefully, apparently inspecting Terra as if to make sure it was really her. When she was satisfied it was, she smiled and held out her hand. "I thought you were dead. We all did."

Terra didn't take her hand, though. She was so glad to see Ashley OK in the middle of all this that she did what she hadn't gotten to do with Tali on Freedom's Progress and jumped to hug her. "I was. And you have no idea how happy I am to see you again!"

Surprisingly, Ashley hugged her back. "We all missed you so much. You were _more_ than our commander, you were…" Then she thought it over. "Wait." She leaned back to look at her again. "If you _were_ dead, then how are you here now?"

Terra sighed, wishing she had a better answer. "Cerberus brought me back."

Ashley was shocked. Then appalled. …then sickened. "You're with Cerberus now?"

"No! It's not like that! They just wanted me to look into the missing colonists."

"I don't believe this! I thought those reports had to be wrong, but you're telling me it's all true?!"

Terra was stunned to hear that. "Reports? What are you talking about?"

Ashley shook her head, still clearly upset. "There was word going around that you were back, that you were with Cerberus. I never would've imagined they were _true_!"

"Ash!" Terra snapped, "Think about this for a second! Cerberus goes against everything I stand for! You know I would never play nice with them unless I had absolutely no other choice!"

"And what if they're playing you into thinking that?! What if they're the ones _behind_ the attacks?!"

"You saw it was the Collectors, and they're working for the Reapers—!"

"Or what if they did something to you?!"

Garrus had to step in now. "I'm in this, too, Ash. You don't think I'm looking out for her to make sure that doesn't happen?"

Ashley scoffed. "No offense, Vakarian, but when it comes to her, you're a bit _distracted_."

"That's too far, Williams," Terra quickly cut back in, "I'm already trying to fight this on two fronts. Don't add yourself to it."

Ashley didn't listen. She did the one thing Terra couldn't take and turned her back on them. "I have to report in. I'll see you around."

"Ash—!" Terra started to call after her, but she still wasn't listening. She was already gone.

Garrus was right by her side as always, but he didn't know if there was anything he could do this time. "Terra?"

She stepped back before he could touch her, not even looking at him as she turned her COMM on. "Joker, pick us up. …I've had enough of this colony."

The rest of the day didn't go any better. After dropping her weapons and armor in the armory, Terra had to talk to the Illusive Man about what went down. What he said only made her suspicions grow until she outright asked if he was the one feeding those reports to the Alliance. He was. He didn't even bother trying to deny it. He said it like it was a perfectly logical thing to do rather than a permanently damaging mark on her reputation and, even worse, an experiment on the Collectors' behavior that put Ashley and everyone else on Horizon at risk. At that point, she wished for the first time that it wasn't a holo-COMM so she could jump across the room and throttle him. Instead, she had to listen to him "justify" his actions and strategize what their next move would be. He was sending over three more dossiers to build the team with and he would let her know when next he found something.

She wasn't looking forward to the next call.

While she was busy with that call, Garrus took that time to stock his weapons in the armory and speak with Mordin. Once they had developed a plan of action, he briefly checked the COMM room to make sure she wasn't still there before heading straight up to deck 1. He knew Terra. He knew she'd put on a brace face for her crew then fall apart over what happened on Horizon. He knew she'd need him. So he headed up there immediately and walked right in.

He found her throwing things and growling in a way that would intimidate most turians. Seeing that, had she elected to show no restraint and throw actual weapons rather than pillows, she would have broken the fish tank and some of the furniture, he thought it was best not to put himself in the line of fire and to let her blow off some steam before he moved in. When she finally buried her face in a pillow to let off a sustained scream of rage before curling up and fighting the urge to cry, that was when he rushed to her side. "Terra?"

"Go away," she moaned, which was hard to pick up on given how her face was still buried in a pillow.

He sighed, ignoring her demand and getting settled beside her. "Terra, listen to me. There wouldn't be _any_ people left on that colony if not for you. You saved as many as you could. And I'm sorry we weren't fast enough to save them all, but that doesn't mean it was your fault. And Ashley? We know her. She trusts you. She _knows_ how you feel about Cerberus. What she said was wrong and she'll see that if we just give her time to."

She finally lifted the pillow enough to glare at him. "You're telling me the truth, not what I need to hear."

"What do you want me to say? That this whole mission was a disaster and there was nothing you could've done?"

That was when she set the pillow aside and sat up enough to look at him more earnestly. "Tell me who I am."

Of all the things he had been expecting her to say, that wasn't one of them. "I…what?"

She curled up, looking away from him sadly. "I don't know anymore. Terra Shepard died. Ever since I came back, I haven't felt like they actually restored me and didn't just piece me back together. With you, it's different, but I thought Ashley would make it real. But to her, I'm just a Cerberus puppet. To Cerberus, I'm a tool." She laid her head on her knees, fighting the urge to cry. "…and back on that field, watching the ship take off, I was another helpless girl watching monstrous aliens drag half a colony kicking and screaming to a nightmare in chains."

He _really_ hadn't been expecting that. He felt stupid for not noticing the similarities between Horizon and Mindoir or how those might affect her. She hadn't let the memory of the raid get to her in a decade. She'd shrugged off painful reminders on virtually every mission they went on like that helpless girl in that hole was just a distant shadow. But on Horizon, she'd been helpless again. It was different in that she didn't have family that was taken, but it was also different in that she _could've_ done something and simply hadn't had the chance. The one way it wasn't different, though, was that she still needed him to pull her out of it. "Terra. Listen to me. You're not that girl anymore."

She scoffed wryly. "Right. I'm just some DNA reconstruction with implanted memories. Is that it?"

"No! Don't you think I could tell if it was really you or not?"

"Which me? The little farm girl who carried her paints everywhere, the refugee who cried in the room next to yours for two years straight, the dutiful soldier that faced down Elysium and Eden Prime and Ilos, or the undead abomination that's trying to pick up where she left off?"

"Why can't it be all of the above?"

The way she looked at him was as firm as it was shaken. "Because it's not. You can't love someone that broken, Garrus."

He stood just as firm, taking her hand again. "Yes, I can. But I don't. Because you're not. You're just upset. If you get some rest and let the dominoes stop falling in your mind, we can make sense of it together—"

The look in her eyes cut him off before the words even came out. "I can't rest. …I can't."

…oh. He hadn't been thinking of that either. She always recovered so easily and so quickly from this particular issue that it hadn't occurred to him, but now he thought it might just make her fall apart if they weren't careful. "The nightmares are back?"

She looked down sadly and nodded.

"How bad?"

"That depends. Which ones are you talking about? Mindoir, the visions, Alchera, or you?"

He could've been surprised to hear that the first two were bothering her after she already conquered them. He would've latched onto Alchera. But the last one struck him. "Me?"

She hesitated to look at him. When she did, her eyes were downcast, her fingers drifting sorrowfully up to his newfound scars.

Realizing what she meant, he felt responsible for this particular pain. If he had been more careful, he wouldn't have had to take that shot and she wouldn't have had to worry about him. "Terra—"

"I keep dreaming that you wouldn't wake up. That you just died in my arms back there and there was nothing I could do. Do you have any idea what that would've done to me?" She did. It was bad enough hearing he was missing. If she actually lost him, it would tear her apart. In that way, it was just as bad as dying.

But he had a response to this one. He wished he didn't, but he did. "…probably the same thing losing you did to me."

She froze, her hand drifting down from his face. "Garrus…"

Suddenly, he couldn't look at her either. "I just left you behind, and the next thing I heard was that you'd been _spaced_. I had nightmares about you freezing and suffocating and drifting away…"

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Garrus, by virtue of sheer willpower, had never had a nightmare in his life because it was "a waste of good sleep." But what happened to her had broken him. "_Garrus_—"

"Please…please tell me that's not what it was really like."

She sighed as she drew closer. "No. My oxygen was cut off, I blacked out before the worst of it happened."

Well, that wasn't much better, but it was still an improvement he wished he'd known about all this time. "…but you said that you were having them, too, now."

Hearing his dilemma, she wished she hadn't mentioned it. But she had. "Yeah. I still got spaced and died, that's not something you just shake off. I thought I could, but…I still have dreams of being lost and cold in empty darkness, stars I love laughing at me while I suffocate and fall…"

He wanted to comfort her, but the fact was that he couldn't do that when he was hurting the same. When he'd first heard about it, it was just an unfortunate end for her to suffer through. But it hadn't occurred to him when he discovered she was back what it must be like for her to _remember_ that suffering. Or to experience it all over again every night. Suddenly, that one glaring issue he'd thought he'd made peace with was overwhelming him. "I…spirits, Terra, I'm so sorry."

She instantly grabbed hold of him, bringing him to face her. "You do _not_ get to blame yourself for that. I was the one who stayed behind. If you'd stayed with me, you either would've gotten spaced, too, and not come back yourself or been stuck on the pod with Joker _watching_ me fall. I couldn't do that to you."

It was unfortunate to consider the past two years the lesser of the two tragedies, but he saw her point. Always selfless. Even when it came to her own death. He sighed. "So what do we do now?"

She wished she had an answer. All she could do was shrug. "We're just gonna have to find a way to be there for each other."

"What are we supposed to do, sleep in the same bed for the foreseeable future?"

She wouldn't have minded that, but she had a better idea. She smiled at the thought of it. "I just need to hear your voice, and you just need a reminder I'm here to. We can COMM each other at lights out."

He took a second to think it over, coming to the conclusion that he wouldn't mind it. In fact, it wasn't that dissimilar to what they'd been doing for those 13 years apart. "That would work, yeah."

Simply at the prospect, she felt her sorrows lessening. He had a way of doing that to her, just by being there. And he was always there. "Thank you for listening. You're the only person I can talk to about this stuff."

He didn't mind being the one person she trusted most. He felt the same way. He wanted to do as much as he could for her. Proof enough that he did genuinely love her. That thought brought his smile back, prompting him to kiss her and say so.

She smiled much more brightly in response, doing the same for him. Her life was far better when Garrus Vakarian was in it.

They sat there for a while, clinging to each other to chase away the last of the pain. It was only when EDI came over the COMM to say Joker was asking for a heading that Terra thought to check the time and saw it was nearly lights out already. She quickly sent a message to Joker to get them through the first relay jump and then leave it on auto-pilot for the night so they could plot a course in the morning. Then she noticed Garrus turning to head back down to his bunk and thought of something.

She stopped him before he could even reach the stairs. "Uh…do you think, just for tonight, we _could_ sleep in the same bed? Just in case?"

He smirked. He couldn't exactly turn her down—partly because it wouldn't be the first time and partly because he simply couldn't turn her down anymore. "Alright. 'Just this once.'" She didn't seem to catch the quote marks in that statement, though, which was probably because she didn't know what he knew. They were still just "boyfriend and girlfriend" by human standards, but by turian standards, he knew they were so much more.

In fact, maybe it was time he told her that.

So when they were in the bed together, his arms tight around her as she leaned into him and slowly drifted off, he did. "Terra?" Or, at least, he tried to. When he received no acknowledgement, he turned to see she was already asleep. It had been a long day, after all. So he sighed, shaking his head, and lied down to follow her. "It'll keep."


	42. Old Friends in New Places

Chapter 42: Old Friends in New Places

We are constantly searching  
For home  
For love  
For recognition  
Sometimes searching merely takes us back to where we began

They knew where Tali was. The second Terra saw her favorite quarian's name in the dossiers, she told Joker to floor it towards Haestrom. All of the people on this ship who had served with Tali aboard the original _Normandy_ (all four of them) were beyond delighted to hear she would be coming back.

If she wanted to. She was still a full-fledged fleet member now, being sent on special assignments and all. Still, Terra was certain that just seeing Tali again and having her support would be enough.

From the moment they landed, Terra was in awe. Most of it was in ruins, but they were seeing _actual quarian architecture_. It was amazing, but it made her regretful for all the architecture and artwork and perhaps even music was lost when the quarians lost Rannoch. How much of it had the geth ignored or even destroyed? Even the quarians believed they'd made a mistake by creating the geth, but Terra merely saw it as unfair. Even if the quarians took back their home-world someday, there some things they could never regain.

Those thoughts were sort of sidelined when she saw the more immediate issue. The atmosphere was breathable, but the sun was out of control. One step out of the shade felt like a spike in temperature of about 1000 degrees, which actually didn't sound so impossible when they discovered it was hot enough to fry their shields. No way around it, either, so they had to run like crazy to get back in the shade. That would be bad enough, but then there was also the issue of geth dropping in the second they entered the actual structure. And speaking of unfair, somehow the geth's shields were programmed perfectly to ignore the heat so they could walk freely and flank them.

_Ridiculously_ unfair, if you asked Terra.

They knew how to handle geth, though, so it didn't even slow them down. Tali was in here somewhere and they were going to find her. They tore through the geth forces as quickly as they could, racing through the shadows to the next sector. There were a few damaged geth lying around, but there were also a few quarian corpses, each one hurting Terra's heart, making her lament that they had failed to arrive sooner. It was only when she heard a voice over a fallen quarian's COMM that she dared to hope there were any survivors.

_"This is Squad Leader Kal'Reegar of the Migrant Fleet Marines," the voice said when they connected, "Our orders are to hold here and protect Tali'Zorah."_

"Where is she?" Terra quickly asked, "Is she alright?"

_"She's holed up in a server not far from your position. I have eyes on it."_

"Stay put. We're coming to you."

_"Wait! You've got a geth drop-ship incoming!"_

The ship in question elected to forego dropping in more troops and simply shot down a pillar, making it drop on a small squad of quarians still fighting nearby. Terra couldn't move fast enough to even warn them before they were all crushed and the door behind them was blocked. That, however, was not a problem. She fought even harder to clear the geth in this sector and acted on what she was starting to think should be a life philosophy for this squad.

If all else fails, use explosives.

Even when they got into the outpost the quarians were apparently using as a sort of base, though, it was still the site of a bloodbath. The quarians had been no safer from their enemies in here than they had been outside, but at least in here the majority of the casualties were geth. And some of the gear they left behind was intact.

Including a holo-COMM console. _"Tali'Zorah to base camp. Come in, base camp."_

Terra was delighted to hear that voice but disheartened that she had to deliver such unfortunate news to her friend. "Tali, it's Terra. I'm sorry, no one else made it."

_Tali sighed sadly. "We all knew this was high-risk. But, Shepard, what are _you_ doing here?"_

Terra smirked. "I heard my favorite quarian was in trouble. Thought I'd lend a hand."

_Tali almost laughed. "I appreciate it. It's good to hear your voice."_

"Trust me, that feeling's mutual." She turned to look at the way that would lead towards the servers. "The door's locked and the console's damaged. Can you open it from your side?"

_"Let me see…yes. That should do it."_

The door opened.

As she readied to go, Terra looked to Tali over the COMM one last time. "We're on our way. Hold tight."

_"I will. …be careful."_

Terra hurried now. She knew Tali could take care of herself, but even she could only handle so many geth at once. She wasn't losing another friend so soon. She was taking down every geth in her way, even—

Oh, crap.

"COLOSSUS!" Kasumi cried out the second Terra let up the lockdown on a security checkpoint and gave the geth in question a shot.

While the thief leapt aside, Garrus reacted so quickly that he practically slammed Terra on the floor to get them both out of the way of the energy blast that would've vaporized them had their shields not been up. He groaned as they crawled to the door to get back out of range. "…definitely like old times…"

Terra gave him a look as they raced down from the checkpoint. Though she kind of wished it was like old times so they'd have a Mako that could take a few hits and fire back with a massive cannon. Taking on a _Colossus_ on _foot_…usually only a good strategy for people with death wishes.

When they turned the corner, they saw a quarian crouched there. "Kal'Reegar!" he called as they ducked down nearby, "We spoke over the COMM! I don't know who you are or what you're doing here, but this isn't the time to be picky!"

"Where's Tali?!" Terra asked, having to raise her voice over the roar of geth fire, "Is she OK?!"

"She holed up in that server farm across the field! Sealed herself in! The geth have been trying to get inside, but it's a bit hard to hack a door when someone's firing rockets at you!" He held up a rocket launcher to accent that statement. "There's a lot of them, though! Worst part is the Colossus! It's got a repair protocol—huddles up a fixes itself! I can't get a clear shot while it's down like that! I tried to reposition and one of them punched a hole clean through my suit!"

The second she heard that, she started worrying. "What?! How bad is it?!"

"Section seals clamped down to isolate contamination and I'm swimming in antibiotics! Geth might get me, but I'm not gonna die of an infection in the middle of a battle! That's just insulting!"

Terra almost laughed. She was starting to like this guy. "We need to get to Tali! Any ideas?!"

"Just one! I've still got a rocket launcher the sun hasn't fried yet, I can cover you while you move in!"

Not a chance. He already had suit damage and she could tell he'd been at this for too long to keep it up. "You don't need to do that, Reegar! We can take it from here!"

"Wasn't really asking your opinion!" He started to arm his weapon to open fire.

She quickly pushed him back down. "We don't have enough people on our side for you to take one for the team! _Stand down_!"

"I can't just sit here! My squad died for this!"

"And if you wanna honor your squad, watch my back! I need you here in case they bring reinforcements!"

He still didn't seem convinced, but a close shot from a geth rifle reminded him they didn't have time to argue. "Alright, Shepard, we'll do it your way! Hit them hard for me! Keelah se'lai!"

She did hit them hard. These were the same synthetics that attacked Eden Prime in the service of Sovereign that were now after one of her closest friends. They weren't stopping her. The only reason she was maintaining a cautious approach and not storming over to tear that Colossus apart with her bare hands was that her squad was behind her and she didn't want them exposed either. So they skirted the battlefield, mowing down any geth troopers that crossed their path, and flanked the Colossus. The geth were making every attempt to cut them off, but they had a clear shot even at the huddled Colossus from here. It was going down.

Garrus wore down its shields as best he could while Kasumi, cloaked for the most part, kept the troopers at bay. Then Terra started tearing into it as best she could from behind cover. When she had to duck under another energy blast that narrowly missed Garrus, though, she'd had enough. She immediately started firing straight into its head-lamp. Most weapons wouldn't so much as crack it, even hers, but she was relentless. And angry. Mostly angry. Not just about who all important to her this thing was endangering but about all the fears she and Garrus had shared the night before—once you face fears like that, they tend to mutate into rage. So she poured out that rage into her assault and just about _did_ tear the thing open with her bare hands. She didn't even realize Garrus was scrambling to drag her back behind cover before it could shoot again until she had already broken its means of attack and thrown a grenade into the hole she left, tearing it open. When it stopped moving, her feelings properly vented, she simply shot down the few remaining geth dispassionately and took a moment to catch her breath.

Garrus looked at her in amazement. "That was…kind of scary."

Terra simply smirked at him. "For you or for them?"

He smirked back. "A bit of both."

She turned her attention to the door. "Tali! You're clear!"

In a few seconds, the door slid open.

Terra smiled with relief as she walked inside and saw her quarian friend inside.

"Thank you, Shepard," Tali sighed as she finished her work on the console and turned to face her old commander, "If not for you, I might never have made it out of this room. This whole mission has been a disaster. I should've joined you back on Freedom's Progress. But I couldn't let anyone else take my place on something this risky."

"I guess that means you're ready to get far, far away from this planet," Terra commented.

"Definitely. I'll send my report to the Admiralty Board and transfer to your ship."

"They won't have a problem with it?"

"Frankly, I don't care. I just watched my whole team die."

"Maybe not the whole rest of your team, ma'am," a certain quarian marine commented as he limped in.

"Reegar!" Tali called, clearly glad to see him, "You made it!"

"Thanks to your old commander here. You were right about her."

Terra smiled. Tali bragged about her? Aw. "Are you OK? Can you get back to the fleet?"

"Our ship is intact. As long as we get clear before more geth arrive, we should make it back to the fleet alright."

"Actually," Tali said, "I'm not staying. I'm going with Shepard."

"Ah. I understand. I'll let the fleet know." He looked at Terra in what seemed to be a very protective way. "She's all yours, Shepard. Keep her safe."

Terra nodded. "I will." Because the day something happened to Tali was the day she laid down her gun. She'd lost too many friends already.

They made it back to the _Normandy_ with Tali in tow. Tali was clearly happy to see the ship she so admired rebuilt, but the upgrades and the Cerberus crew seemed to upset her. Terra couldn't blame her. Once the squad has put their gear away, Terra met Tali in the COMM room. She wanted to have a quick reunion chat with her and then give her a tour of the ship.

Naturally, Jacob ruined the plan. "Cerberus saw footage of you in action, Tali'Zorah. Sounds like you'll be a real asset to the team."

Tali glared at him. "I don't know who you are, but Cerberus threatened the security of the Migrant Fleet. Don't make nice."

"That's one reason I need you here, Tali," Terra said, "I need people who aren't Cerberus, people I know I can trust. And there's no one I trust more than you and Garrus."

Tali shook her head. "I understand. I just assumed you were undercover, maybe planning to blow Cerberus up."

Terra almost laughed. "I mean, it's not off the table, but we're a bit short on options right now."

"Then when the time comes, I'll loan you a grenade. Otherwise, I'm here for _you_. Not them."

Terra smiled. "That's more than enough."

"We're giving you full access to the engineering deck," Jacob stepped back in.

"Please do," Tali nodded, "I can't be part of your crew if I don't know how your ship works." She started to head for the elevator.

Terra was about to follow her and offer to show her the way.

Again, naturally, Jacob had to go and say something. "Don't forget to introduce yourself to EDI, the ship's new artificial intelligence."

Terra only needed to hear the words to start wincing, let alone see the way Tali looked back at them before walking off without a word. Why? Why did Jacob have to say that? He had to know how quarians were about AI after what happened with the geth, especially Tali. True, EDI was different and Tali was going to find out sometime, but there was definitely a better way to break it to her. Now Terra was going to have to let her stew for about an hour before she could talk.

So she spent an hour setting a course for their next destination and even expressing her delight at having one of her closest friends back on the ship with her in her sketchbook. Then she headed straight to deck 4. She didn't even stop to see Garrus first, she just went straight to the engine room.

Maybe now Garrus was something more, _Tali_ was becoming her best friend.

Tali had apparently let her resentment calm down, because she seemed perfectly fine when she saw Terra enter the room. "Shepard. What can I do for you?"

Terra shrugged. "Just wondering if you had time to talk."

Tali glanced over at Daniels and Donnelly before nodding to the drive core, prompting Terra to follow her onto the platform overlooking it. "We didn't really have time to chat while taking down geth on Haestrom, did we?" She sighed. "I still can't believe how badly it all went wrong. Thank you again for getting Reegar out alive."

Terra nodded. "It's what I do, remember?"

"…yes. Shepard, I…are you sure about working with Cerberus?"

"Of course not! They're obviously going to betray us at some point. And when they do, I'll be ready to shoot back."

Tali smiled. "Good to see you haven't changed."

Terra sighed as she slumped down to sit against the rail. "Yeah, well, I'm glad you think so. Ash sure didn't."

Tali looked at her in concern, sitting down beside her. "What? What happened?"

Terra reluctantly relayed to her the events on Horizon. As far as she was concerned, it made Haestrom seem like the lesser of two disasters.

Tali looked at her sympathetically. "I guess we both learned the hard way that even the most hard-won successes can still feel like failures."

Terra nodded. "Yeah, we did. I'm sorry you had to learn that. …I just hope we don't have to learn it again."

Tali shook her head. "We won't. If there's anyone in this galaxy who could lead a ragtag bunch of aliens and crooks straight through Omega-4 and then back again, it's you."

Terra laughed. "That's a real vote of confidence."

"Yes, well…what are friends for?"

Terra smiled. It was a question worthy of her poetry, honestly. They were for picking you up when you stumbled, for showing you the light when you were lost in hopelessness, for watching your back when you were up against more than you could face alone. A true friend would never leave your side, even in the heart of your greatest foes' lair. And that was certainly what Tali was doing for her. It meant more than she could say simply. So she said it less than simply: "For carrying the weight of life when it is too much for one to bear."

Tali gave her a puzzled look. She'd heard Terra wax poetic before, sure, but she wasn't usually so open about it.

Terra sighed. "I appreciate you coming back aboard, Tali. Let me know if you need to talk."

Tali stopped her from getting up, though. "…I hope you know _I'm_ here if _you _need to talk."

The last person to make that particular offer to her outright (besides Garrus, obviously) was Solana. Hearing it now from someone else she cared about was hard to just walk away from. "Of course."

So they sat there talking for what had to be the rest of the day. After all they'd been through lately, it was nice to get to just sit down and talk with someone who really cared. Tali had been missing her friend a lot these past two years. No one else could really take her place. By the time Terra had to leave, she was already glad she had come back, Cerberus or no, and looking forward to some more time with…well, her favorite human.

Keelah, Terra was contagious. Next she'd be talking in prose.

Tali shook her head, setting the thoughts aside as she went back to looking over the engine specs. The Migrant Fleet was home, but the _Normandy_…the _Normandy_ was where she belonged.


	43. Ilium

**Review reply: lordheistra222...oh, we will. ;)**

Chapter 43: Ilium

There was nothing new under the moon  
So we reached above it  
For these stars are infinite  
We could map these skies  
We could see every sun rise, burn, and fall  
But there will still be discoveries to be made  
There will still be worlds to find

Terra had been to a lot of worlds, but Ilium was new to her. It was a border world, right on the edge of Council space and the Terminus Systems, colonized by the asari and run by corporations as much as Noveria. Their last two recruits were around here somewhere, but it was the horizon that drew her in when they landed. Amethyst skies stretched over a broad skyline, busy traffic skidding past hundreds of meters above the ground. It was wondrous.

But even that slipped her mind when the asari who greeted them at the docks informed them Liara T'Soni was there and wanted to see them. _Liara_ was _here_! That got Terra racing through the trading floor to the office set aside for the asari in question.

She opened the door to find an asari information broker speaking to a contact over a holo-COMM. "Have you faced an asari commando unit before? Few humans have."

Terra stilled. She knew that voice, it was clearly Liara, but using the words of her indoctrinated mother? That menacing tone? Something was wrong.

"I'll make it simple. Either you pay me or I flay you alive. _With my mind_!" Only with that said did she hang up.

_Really _wrong. But she was here and this was still her friend. She had to say something. "Liara?"

Liara jumped when she heard that voice. "Shepard!" She quickly dropped her things on the desk and turned to the door, calling to her assistant to hold her calls before rushing over to hug Terra. "…Shepard…" All the menace in her voice was gone, replaced by the relief of a friend in mourning reuniting with her lost companion.

Terra returned the embrace. Things were different, but this was proof enough that Liara was still her friend no matter how much either of them had changed. That was a comfort to know.

Liara sighed blissfully as she drew back. "My sources said you were alive again, but…I never dreamed…"

Terra smirked. "You have sources now?"

Liara shrugged. "Sources, contacts, some hired muscle. I've been working as an information broker. Not what I'm used to, but it's paid the bills since…you…well, for the past two years."

Oh. Terra hadn't realized just how long two years was. Garrus and Tali had moved on and even changed, but this was…quite the change to have missed. "…are you OK?"

Liara sighed. "Better now that you're here. I've missed you."

Terra smiled. "I've been hearing that a lot lately."

Liara smiled back. "It shows how much you meant to us all."

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to tag along again? I could use more friends on the _Normandy_ right now."

"I wish I could. But I have responsibilities here. If it's information you need, though, I'm happy to provide."

Not what she wanted, but she'd take it. So Terra got what she needed to track down their last two recruits before preparing to head out. "Thanks for the help. And Liara? If you ever need me—if you want a door kicked down or just someone to talk to—I'm only a call away."

Liara nodded gratefully. "I appreciate that, Shepard. Stay safe."

That she couldn't promise, but she would certainly be trying. She was no good to the galaxy dead.

Clearly.

The first of their last two recruits was an assassin. Yippee. Liara had been able to identify his latest target, so it was a simple matter of infiltrating said target's tower and fighting their way to the top. Right away, Terra started to suspect this was no ordinary assassin. This target clearly deserved what was coming. They only made it as far as the front door when they saw one of the salarian workers the mechs had shot down. Terra wasn't letting this stand. She spared some medi-gel to get the salarian back on his feet, then she stormed the tower, taking out every merc and mech in her way and freeing every worker they found. Each of the salarians they found, though, was alive and safely locked away apparently by the assassin. By the time they reached the penthouse, Terra wasn't sure what to expect anymore.

She definitely wasn't expecting a drell to drop soundlessly from the vents, snap the necks of all the guards, then shoot the target in the stomach before she even realized he was there. Or for him to then lay her body down gently and fold his hands in penitence.

Terra looked at him in amazement. "Thane Krios, was it? You sure know how to make an entrance."

He didn't even look at her.

"I was kind of hoping to talk to you."

"I apologize," he spoke up, "but prayers for the wicked must not be forsaken."

Now she was stunned. "You really think she deserves it?"

He shook his head. "Not for her. For me."

Never mind. _Now_ she was stunned.

The drell named Thane simply came around to speak to her directly. "I was curious to see how far you would go to find me. Well, here I am."

She would've questioned how he knew she was coming, but she hadn't exactly been subtle on the way up here. "I need your help. The Collectors are abducting entire human colonies. We need to shut them down."

Thane gave her a curious look. "Attacking the Collectors would require traveling through the Omega-4 relay. No ship has ever returned from doing so."

She shrugged. "I specialize in doing the impossible."

"So I've heard." He turned to consider the offer, glancing contemplatively out the window at the sunset. It was a thought-provoking sight to him, bringing him to breathe deep and confess "This was to be my last job. …I'm dying."

Of all the things he could've said, Terra was not expecting that. This whole meeting had been a string of surprises, but this news was regrettable, to say the least. "I…I hadn't heard that. Is there anything we can do?"

"Giving me this chance is enough. Low survival odds do not concern me. The abduction of your colonists does." So he turned to accept. "I will work for you, Shepard. No charge."

After bringing Thane back to the ship to get settled in the driest area of the ship, the life support deck, it was just a matter of collecting their final recruit. Samara, an asari justicar, was off investigating a crime scene.

More or less. Terra had only walked through a door before a merc suddenly went flying overhead to slam into the wall. Ten seconds later, another came tumbling out a window to crash on the ground nearby.

Then the justicar herself came down to break her neck. Once that business was concluded, she turned to Terra. "I am Samara, a servant of the justicar Code. My quarrel is with these Eclipse sisters, yet I see three well-armed people before me. Are we friend or foe?"

"Friend, I'm hoping," Terra answered, "I'm Commander Shepard. I'm putting a team together for a dangerous mission and I need the best. That means you."

"I am flattered, but I cannot. I seek a dangerous fugitive. I cornered her here, but the Eclipse sisters smuggled her off-world. I must find the name of the ship she left on before the trail goes cold."

A difficult problem with a simple solution. Terra headed straight for the Eclipse headquarters to track down the name of the ship for her. Even on their home turf, the Eclipse didn't stand a chance. When the captain was taken care of, it was just a matter of taking the datapad from her desk and bringing it back to Samara.

"Your fugitive left on the _AML Demeter_," Terra informed the justicar.

Samara smiled. "Shepard, you impress me. You have fulfilled your part of the bargain and I will fulfill mine."

And just like that, they had a full team. Once Samara was on the ship and settled into the observation deck opposite Kasumi's, they had a squad numbered 11. Well, 12 if you counted Terra, but Garrus had had some bad luck with that count and preferred not to think of it that way, especially considering the mission they were on. Terra even suggested they gather in the COMM room to discuss strategy and "break the ice" a little.

That went about as well as could be expected.

"I'm out," Jack said two seconds in, turning to head back for the cargo hold, "I got no interest in playing nice with Cerberus."

"Yeah, well, neither does Tali," Terra pointed out, "so you've got some common ground there. In fact, quite frankly, neither do I, but I'm trying to make a point to these two." She nodded to Jacob and Miranda.

"Hey," Jacob stepped back, "we're on your side."

"Cerberus is trying to do the right thing," Miranda pointed out, ignoring the few choice words Jack muttered in response, "Let's not turn on each other before we even get there."

"And here I thought playing peacemaker was my job," Terra remarked, "Is that why you took the XO position?"

"Fine, as long as we agree this is about doing what's best for humanity."

"No, it's about stopping the Reapers and doing what's best for the galaxy. You can avoid mentioning my background, but I can't just ignore it."

"What's she talking about now?" Zaeed questioned.

"Oh," Kasumi smirked, "the good commander's an adopted turian."

"She's _what_?" Grunt asked, clearly confused.

"Orphaned, brought to Palaven, developed sense of honor and duty that prompted enlistment—am I missing anything?"

"No, that sounds about right," Terra answered.

"Oh, and let's not forget deeply in love with our new gunnery chief."

"Wait, what?! I didn't tell you that!"

"You didn't have to, Shep."

Terra groaned. Was it that obvious or was the gossipmonger thief actually spying on her? She wasn't sure which was worse.

Garrus seemed to have the same response. "Uh, maybe I should go—"

"Oh, come on, you two!" Tali smirked, "You didn't exactly bother hiding it on the last _Normandy_."

Terra sighed. Right. It _was_ that obvious. Fair enough. "Look, we're here to discuss our next move, not my personal life."

"But shouldn't we get to know you if we're gonna be following you around everywhere?" Kasumi smirked playfully.

"_Thin ice_, Goto!"

"Alright, we can stop picking on Shepard any minute now," Jacob shook his head.

Jack scoffed. "You're just saying that 'cause you don't like thinking about your golden girl as a bird-lover."

"Not making it better, Jack," Terra moaned.

Samara seemed to be considering the new information carefully. She finally noticed how Terra's necklace matched Garrus' markings and smiled. "I see. You consider each other family and the bond has deepened over time."

"Over 15 years, yeah. Now can we please talk about something else?"

"Ah!" Mordin spoke up, clearly having missed the pointed question, "Starting to understand now. Exposure to secondary culture at developmental age after great trauma. Deep emotional attachment to turian species prompting ideals of galactic unity, exploring cultural diversity, honor, courage, self-sacrifice. Remarkable!"

"Thanks, now can we—"

"In terms of interspecies relationship, can provide medical recommendations."

"OK, that's enough of that!" Garrus spoke up, turning to leave the room.

"What, you've known the girl 15 years and you haven't even tried to bang her yet?" Zaeed cut back in.

"Alright, that does it!" Terra snapped, "One more comment and I'm kicking you all off the ship and starting over!"

"What else are we supposed to talk about?" Kasumi retorted.

"Oh, I don't know, how about the fact that a race of giant machines out to obliterate all organic life in the galaxy sent an army of Collectors to abduct entire colonies and we don't know how to stop them yet?!"

"…fair enough."

"Not sure what you expect us to do about it," Jack cut back in, "None of us know how to get through that relay any more than you do."

"We can still be discussing how to prepare the ship for the assault," Tali suggested, "I have some ideas about the shielding, and it couldn't hurt to upgrade the plating and batteries while we're at it."

"Of course," Mordin nodded, "Can pool resources in tech lab, possibly apply to upgrading armor and weapons as well."

"Before or after you give those 'medical recommendations' to the lovebirds over there?" Kasumi sniggered.

"Is every conversation on the ship like this?" Thane finally asked.

Garrus groaned. "Starting to look that way, yeah."

Terra finally gave up. "On second thought, we can start this up again after we've gotten off of Ilium."

Miranda stepped in before she could move. "Um, actually, there was something I wanted to talk to you about before we left the docks." She looked at the squad for a moment. "_Alone_."

Somehow, _this time_, they got the message. Jack tossing a sharp glance at Miranda on the way out, they all headed back to their stations, Mordin apparently getting started on arranging those upgrades with Garrus, Tali, and Jacob.

Once it was clear, Terra turned to Miranda. "What is it?"

Miranda sighed and explained the issue: her father had genetically engineered her but not cared about her, she'd run away and joined Cerberus at a young age, and she had a twin sister (genetically identical, at least) on Ilium who was still being hunted down by their father. "There's a chance he knows where she is. I was hoping we could go to the transport station while her family's being relocated to make sure she's safe."

Terra was amazed to hear all this. There was more to the operative than she had realized, apparently. And since she knew what it was like to lose a sister, she didn't see any reason they couldn't take care of this while they were there. "Of course. Grab your gear, I'll get Garrus, and we'll go."

To her credit, Miranda didn't have a problem with Garrus coming. She may have been Cerberus, but she didn't seem to have a problem with the aliens onboard. She especially didn't seem to have a problem with the fact Terra worked best with Garrus behind her and didn't go anywhere without him. Instead, she simply thanked the commander for agreeing to divert their attention for a while and headed for the armory.

Terra was starting to think she actually liked the operative. Maybe she really was on the path to winning over the Cerberus crew.

It was late in the night by the time they were headed in. Miranda's contact had warned them that her friend, Niket, was headed in ahead but that Eclipse was moving in on the terminal at the same time. Miranda's solution was to fly straight in to draw fire and bank on the fact that the mercs would have orders to take her in alive. Risky, but they'd had riskier, and it was the best shot at giving Miranda's sister, Oriana, time to get clear. Luckily, the mercs did eventually hold fire and let them land. Unluckily, they weren't actually interested in playing fair, so it still ended in a straight-up fight. Their loss. …literally.

Their path through was simple enough—shoot everything in their way. They had enough practice with Eclipse troops by now (seriously, these guys were _everywhere_ on Ilium) to take them out easily, especially with Miranda there to quickly take down all their defenses. It took all of ten minutes for them to cross the entire terminal…and intercept an Eclipse COMM message that Niket was the one handing Oriana over to the mercs. Miranda was convinced this meant the Eclipse were onto them and leaking false information. Until they reached the cargo bay and saw Niket himself there with the Eclipse. Terra couldn't blame Miranda for wanting to shoot the guy, but she knew better than to let that happen; Miranda could write it off as protecting Oriana, but the truth was that it was vengeance, which Zaeed's debacle had proven never solves anything. Not that it mattered, since the Eclipse captain immediately turned around and shot him for them. Miranda proved Terra right by lashing out at the captain for gunning down the man she still cared for, tossing her across the entire bay with her biotics and sending them into one last firefight. Miranda was plainly devastated when the fight was over and the emotional weight of this mission crashed down on her, but Terra stepped up. A good commander supports their soldiers, after all. And a good friend is there to pick them up when they falter. So Miranda pulled herself together and led them to the last elevator, asking that they check the main terminal to make sure Oriana was clear of Eclipse completely.

When they reached the terminal and determined it was safe, Miranda caught sight of her sister across the way. "There she is."

Terra followed Miranda's gaze and saw a 19-year-old girl with Miranda's face talking to a pair of adults with a bright smile. The likeness was uncanny, but the innocence was new. This girl had no idea what Miranda had saved her from, and the capacity for a normal life had sent her on an entirely different path from her sister.

"She's safe," Miranda continued, seeming to follow Terra's line of thought for herself, "…with her family." She hesitated, falling into silence for a moment as she watched Oriana. Then she took a deep breath and steeled herself once more. "Come on. We should go."

Terra looked at her in shock. "You're not even gonna talk to her?"

"Shepard, she has a family, a life. I'd just complicate that for her."

This was one matter Terra was _not_ budging on. "Miranda, if I had the chance to talk to my sister, I'd take a little complication. She doesn't need to know the details, but she deserves to know she has a sister who loves her."

Miranda didn't argue. She knew it was true. So she walked over before she could change her mind.

Terra watched from afar, smiling as the scene unfolded. This was a private moment, though, so she diverted her attention to the distant sunrise, as beautiful as the sunset and even more hopeful.

Garrus finally came up next to her. "She's really going to owe you for this."

Terra shook her head. "We're crewmates. And this was a family matter. It's on the house." She looked at him. "Speaking of which, when you were talking to Mordin about the guns, did he mention…?"

He nodded. "He talked to some STG contacts. They're working on upgrading the security clearance on the research group that's treating Corpalis. And I may have channeled some funds into the family account when no one was looking."

She smirked. "Wish we could see their faces when they check the balance."

"I'd probably be their last guess for where it came from."

"No, _I'd_ be the last guess. You know, since they think I'm dead and all."

Oh, right. He watched her as she looked back over at the sunrise, clearly disheartened. "You know, I'm going to call them later and check in, let them know I'm OK and everything. If you want, you could talk to them—"

"No. I want to, but they're going through enough right now without me springing that on them, especially considering who did it. …and I don't wanna get their hopes up if we don't make it out of this."

"Terra, you can't think like that—"

"I know, but I have to. When this is over, we'll call them together, celebrate the Collectors going boom, and handle the salarians. In the meantime, we'll just have to keep supporting from afar and you can do all the talking."

"Without mentioning you or where I am?"

"Did they know you were on Omega?"

"…I see your point."

Terra smirked. "I'm insightful like that."

_"Commander," EDI's voice suddenly came over the COMM, "The Illusive Man is asking to speak to you in the COMM room when you return to the ship."_

Terra groaned. "This should be interesting."

Terra and Garrus waited by the elevator as Miranda spoke with Oriana. When Miranda finally hugged her sister and came back over to them to go, she was clearly holding back tears. Terra smiled. Whatever happened next, this had been worth the detour.


	44. Ghost Ship

Chapter 44: Ghost Ship

There are many types of ghosts  
Those that haunt  
Those that terrorize  
And those that dwell in silence

The Illusive Man's call had been to inform Terra that a turian platoon had managed to cripple a Collector ship and the squad needed to go check out the ship for information on the Omega-4 relay. She didn't like it. She also didn't like the fact that he was withholding the turian response by feeding them false information. But they were in a precarious position and they needed everything they could find, so they had to take this chance while it was available.

Terra took Garrus and Thane with her to check the place out. As soon as they set foot on it, she knew something was wrong, but she wasn't sure if that was genuinely her instincts going off or if it was just because this ship was so unsettling. It was laid out like a giant insect hive and the very first corner they turned showed that pods were everywhere onboard. She tried very hard not to think about how horrible it must have been for the colonists trapped inside…or where they were now that the ship was powered down.

_"Shepard," EDI informed them as they turned from inspecting the pods for vital signs, "I have finished preliminary examinations on the ship. It is the vessel you encountered on Horizon."_

That made sense, Terra concluded. As she replied, the defense towers might even have softened up the ship for the turians, which would explain how one ship had managed to disable it. Now, though, the question that bothered her was if any of the captured colonists were still aboard and where they would be if they were.

A question that was forgotten completely when they found a mound of corpses tossed in a corner. Terra had seen a lot of terrible things, especially in the vision the Protheans left behind or during the raid on Mindoir, but this was definitely in the top five worst.

Thane was questioning what the purpose could be behind discarding the colonists they went to so much trouble to take, but Garrus only offered the cursory response about how they were probably doing experiments and found no worth in these as subjects before he turned all his attention to Terra. Horizon had triggered a rather intense reaction for her and seeing this wasn't going to help much, so he was in position to quietly console her at a moment's notice.

But she shook it off. They were on a mission, she couldn't afford to freeze up. Besides… "They're dead. There's nothing we can do about it." It was clear they had been through a lot before they died, but there was nothing they could do about that either. And death was probably a release after that.

She fought the encroaching thought of if death had been a release or would have been a release for all those taken on Mindoir, for _Violet_, and kept moving. Suddenly, she was desperately in need of killing some of these monsters.

So when the first one they came across was dead on what looked like an operating table, she wasn't sure how to feel besides confused. "EDI, what's going on here?" she asked as she sent scans to the ship.

_"The Collectors were testing humans for genetic similarities to their own species," EDI answered._

Now Terra was even more confused. "Why?"

_"I cannot see a reason, only preliminary results data. Data that reveals something remarkable. A quad-strand genetic structure identical to traces uncovered in ancient ruins. Only one race is known to have this genetic structure…the Protheans."_

Terra descended into pure shock as the truth settled in. This was impossible, unspeakable, and yet…irrefutable. "…spirits…the Protheans didn't vanish. They were enslaved by the Reapers!"

_"These are no longer Protheans, Shepard. They are subjects of millennia of extensive genetic rewrites and cybernetic augmentations."_

And indoctrination. This was the fate of an entire species, an entire culture wiped out. This was the horror behind the visions that so haunted her. …this was the nightmare that awaited every race in the galaxy if they failed. The husks on Eden Prime and Horizon were just the beginning. If the Reapers actually came to begin their harvest…spirits, she couldn't bear to think of it.

She also wouldn't let it happen. It was too late for the Protheans—killing the Collectors now would be a mercy—but it wasn't too late for the turians or the asari or humanity. The Reapers had just made a mistake. They'd ticked her off. And they were going to regret it before they ever set their sights on her galaxy. "Now we've got even more reason to end this. Let's go."

She moved with purpose through the ship, scanning every corner for signs of targets. If Garrus couldn't understand what had her so worked up, even he might have been intimidated.

_"Uh, commander?" Joker cut in as they headed to the next level, "You're gonna wanna hear this. On a hunch, I had EDI run some scans."_

_"I have compared our sensor readings," EDI explained, "to data taken by the original _Normandy_ two years ago. …they are an exact match."_

Garrus and Terra both froze as the news sunk in. This was the same ship that had attacked the _Normandy_…the same ship that had killed Terra.

Just like that, they were both furious. This whole ship was going down if they had anything to say about it.

When they made their way to the central chamber of the ship, though, even that fury was overshadowed by what they found. This chamber was half the size of the ship and every wall was lined with pods.

"You could take every human in the Terminus Systems and it wouldn't be enough to fill these pods," Garrus surmised.

Thane was the one who realized what that meant: "They're going to target Earth next."

"Not if we can help it," Terra asserted, heading straight for the console at the end of the walkway and establishing the link with EDI.

Garrus, however, was still watching their surroundings. "Something's wrong. We should've seen Collectors by now, alive or dead."

Terra agreed, but there was nowhere else for them to go and EDI was already connected.

_"Scanning…" EDI said._

Then the COMM signal cracked. Terra might have been imagining it, but she could just barely hear Joker saying "That can't be good." before the ship started moving, pipes shifting and locking in place all around them.

When her readings indicated the COMMs were back online, Terra quickly turned on hers. "Everyone's fine. What just happened?"

_"We experienced a system overload," EDI explained, "I manage to divert most of it to non-critical systems. Shepard, this was not a malfunction. This was a trap."_

As if she'd given off a signal, the platform started moving, raising the squad up from the walkway to the center of the chamber. Just as suddenly, more platforms emerged from the distance to connect and bring the Collectors right to them. Terra thought fast, pulling Garrus and Thane into cover behind the console until they could get clear shots at their assailants. She didn't like that the Collectors had gotten the jump on them or how difficult the fight wound up being or that EDI was actually tasked to capacity just trying to fight off hacking attempts. She would definitely be chewing out the Illusive Man when they got back, right after she avenged the Protheans and the SR-1. All three of them were snipers and the Collectors were closing in, but Thane was a biotic and was able to push them back. It was hard-won, more so than usual, but it was still won.

_"Commander," EDI came over the COMM once they were clear, "you need to reestablish my link with the main console."_

Terra quickly came out of cover to hit a few buttons. EDI took over from there, lowering the platform back to the main level of the ship. "Nice work, EDI."

_"I have disabled the Collectors' virus and obtained all the necessary data I could find from the ship's computers. I also located the turian distress signal that served as the lure for this trap. It is unusual."_

Terra shrugged it off at first. "Collectors probably planted it to draw us in."

_"No, I mean it is unusual in that turian messages have a secondary encryption that is corrupted in this signal. There is no way the Illusive Man believed it was genuine."_

Terra stopped dead in her tracks when she heard that. "What makes you say that?"

_"I discovered the corruption with Cerberus detection algorithms. …he wrote them."_

He'd actually done it. He'd turned on them and tried to get them killed after he said they were doing what was necessary to finish the mission. Maybe she'd skip the chewing him out over the holo-COMM after all. Maybe she'd just track him down and kill him. Surely Miranda knew where he was and would agree he'd gone too far.

Garrus certainly did, if the way he was groaning and shaking his head was anything to go by. "And here I thought I'd had my betrayal and attempted murder for this year…"

_"Uh, commander?" Joker spoke up, "We've got another problem. That ship's weapons are coming online. You've gotta get out of there, I'm not losing another _Normandy_!"_

_Neither am I,_ Terra agreed, drawing her weapon and turning to lead the way to the exit. Cerberus she was done with, but the ship was _hers_.

Collectors barred their way at every turn, but even that couldn't stop them. They only stopped to take cover, all three of them sniping down targets every other second. It only got harder when the husks came out, not to mention those biotic abominations known as Scions or the flying monstrosity known as the Praetorian. Even their path through the ship grew more difficult when the Collectors started fighting back against EDI's attempts to seize control of the systems and started closing doors to cut them off. EDI was proving herself invaluable and perhaps even genuinely trustworthy in her efforts to keep them on-track. As it was, Terra would have been entirely out of breath by the time they got back to the shuttle if not for her cybernetics. That and she was careful to slow down every once in a while to make sure Garrus and Thane were still behind her. More and more husks kept swarming their path and Joker constantly came over the line to let them know they were running out of time before the weapons were active, so they couldn't afford to stop running until they were back at the shuttle.

Just getting onto the shuttle was a close call. Thane hopped on first and started sniping down the husks behind them to cover their retreat. Garrus jumped in and turned back for Terra so quickly that he didn't even think to pull his rifle back out. Terra was racing on, but just as she jumped in, a husk caught up to her and grabbed her by the leg. Garrus acted fast then, one hand taking hers and pulling her in as the other drew his gun and emptied the clip on the husk that was clawing into her armor. It finally fell, letting him bring his human onboard all the way and slam the button to close the shuttle so they could make their way back to the _Normandy_. Garrus immediately started checking her leg to make sure she wasn't injured, finding that her armor was scratched and it was possible the flesh beneath was as well. She was quick to assure him that she was fine and, even if she wasn't, Chakwas or Mordin could take care of it. He believed her, but that didn't calm him down. He'd already lost her once, he could only take so many close calls.

Just like she could only take so many close calls when it came to her ship and crew after having experienced that loss once already. She didn't know how she could influence that particular issue, but she still ran full speed up to the bridge the second the shuttle was docked. Joker, thankfully, was as skilled as ever and managed to, with EDI's help, FTL jump out of the entire system two seconds before the Collector ship could fire its first laser at where they'd been floating.

Once that was over, Terra took a moment to calm down before heading straight to the armory to put her gear away before the magnitude of what they just experienced could come upon her. Garrus and Thane met her there to drop off their weapons and helmets, giving her a chance to applaud their skills and cool-under-pressure resilience even as she also "discreetly" eyed Garrus to make sure he hadn't taken any hits in that mad dash for the door. Fair enough, since he was doing the same to her, as well as looking over her leg again to make sure there wasn't more than a flesh wound where the husk had grabbed her. They seemed to settle on an unspoken agreement to head to the med bay together later and maybe catch some alone time afterwards to put the whole incident behind them.

Speaking of which…

_"Commander," Joker finally came over the PA, "the Illusive Man is trying to contact us. I figure you've got a few words for him, too."_

Oh, did she just. She was already enraged when she entered the COMM room. When the connection was established and she actually saw the Cerberus founder sitting there, every cell in her body started fuming.

"Shepard," he spoke, not seeming to notice how the sound of his voice set her off even further, "EDI uncovered some useful intel from the Collector ship."

Terra scoffed. "That's not all she found. I knew you were going to betray us, but I didn't figure you'd go _this_ far."

"Commander, before you—"

"What was the plan here? The ship kills us all right after you receive EDI's intel, so a Cerberus team can finish off the Collectors and get all the glory? Did you just bring me back to spread those rumors and overshadow me as the hero of the galaxy? I knew this organization had done some pretty despicable things, but this was low!"

"Shepard!" he finally stood up, "I knew it was a trap, yes, but I also had full confidence in you and your team to overcome it. It was a necessary risk."

"Oh, and you couldn't have _warned me_?!"

"If you knew it was a trap, you might have acted differently, tipped off the Collectors to what we were planning."

"What 'we'? I made myself clear when we started this deal. You lied to me, put my crew at risk, and that goes well beyond 'something I don't agree with.' We're done. And when the Collectors are taken care of, I'm coming after you."

"Do you at least want to hear what EDI discovered?" he said before she could disconnect.

"Pretty sure she can tell me herself."

"You also said you wouldn't turn down help as long as I was willing to offer it. I have more."

She was eying him with no small amount of suspicion, but he had a point. "You've got two minutes. Talk fast."

He nodded. "The Collectors navigate the Omega-4 relay with the use of a Reaper-coded IFF. As it happens, I recently sent a team to investigate the Great Rift on the planet Klendagon and they discovered it was the result of a very old mass accelerator being fired at a Reaper. A Reaper that is now long dead. I'm sending the coordinates now, but I should warn you that the team we dispatched to investigate the remains of the ship has stopped reporting in."

Terra didn't trust a word he said, but he wouldn't lie when he knew EDI could tell her otherwise, so this was probably their best lead. It was also the last lead she was taking from him. "Well, I appreciate the help. Wish I could also say it was nice working with you."

"Shepard, wait—"

"Save it for the next Lazarus. EDI, I'd appreciate it if you could block this channel." Before the Illusive Man could keep arguing, she stepped out of the holo-COMM.

_"Commander," EDI responded, "my programming forbids me from—"_

"Then do the best you can without me having Tali cross your wires." With that, she disabled the holo-COMM entirely. "And call the team. We need to make some changes to the plan."

Ten minutes later, the squad was gathered in the room with her, listening to what had just happened.

Miranda stared at her in astonishment. "Did you actually quit Cerberus?"

"No, 'quit' implies I was ever working _for_ them. But, yes, that more or less describes what I did, in fact, do. That's not gonna be a problem, is it?"

Miranda sighed. "No. Cerberus may have set up Oriana's relocation, but they weren't there for me and my sister when it happened. You were."

Jacob shrugged. "I had some issues with action they'd taken in the past. I can't blame you for calling this a breaking point."

Terra barely kept herself from looking at them both in shock. She'd expected them to try changing her mind when the time finally came that she started pushing Cerberus away completely. But they were going along with it, understanding her choice. If they did, it was likely the rest of the Cerberus crew would, too. That was a true testament to how much everyone on this ship was willing to stand behind her. Maybe she didn't need Cerberus at all.

"So what are we doing now?" Zaeed finally asked.

Terra turned to the holo-table to go through the intel they'd received before she cut the COMM line to the Illusive Man. "The Collector ships have a Reaper IFF that helps them navigate the relay. We can't go through without installing one of our own. Luckily, there just so happens to be a dead Reaper in the Hawking Eta cluster."

_"I have also determined," EDI came over the PA, "from the Collector data we retrieved navigational records that can pinpoint the location of the Collector home-world."_

"Show us," Terra stepped back from the holo-display controls, "We need to know what we're going into."

So EDI connected to the display, changing it to a galaxy map and highlighting…the very center?

"That can't be right," Miranda said, confused.

"I hate to side with the AI," Tali countered, "but I've been working with her long enough to know she doesn't make mistakes."

"You mean the Collector base is in the _core_?!" Garrus asked.

"Can't be," Jacob shook his head, "The core's nothing but black holes and exploding suns. No way they could have a habitable world in there."

"In case you've forgotten, they're working for the Reapers," Terra pointed out, "As in the machines that built the mass relays and the Citadel. We shouldn't consider anything impossible."

Mordin nodded. "Yes, could be artificial construction. Shielded station in 'eye of storm.'"

"That would certainly explain why no other ships survived the jump."

_"Exactly," EDI concurred, "drift of several thousand kilometers is common and would be fatal in the galactic core. It's likely the IFF has additional navigational programming that helps to adjust."_

"Then let's go get the IFF," Jacob said.

"No," Terra immediately shot him down, "That IFF isn't going anywhere and is probably the point of no return as far as the mission's concerned—as soon as it's installed, we'll have to head in while we can. We need to make sure we're prepared, finish all those upgrades and anything else we can find that might give us an edge."

Jacob gave her a look. "Are you saying that because you actually think so or because the Illusive Man told you to head straight there and you want to spite him?"

Both. Or rather, as she put it when she answered, "No, I disconnected to spite him. This is a genuine concern. We're already putting our lives on the line just by taking the mission. We need to ensure we can still finish it no matter what happens."

He sighed. "Fair enough."

"We'll head back to prepping as best we can," Tali said, "We'll be ready whenever you decide it's time to make our move."

With that said, the team headed back to their stations except for Terra and Garrus. Once it was clear, Terra sighed and slumped against the table, burying her head between her arms.

Garrus leaned over beside her, placing his hand supportively on her back. "You didn't waste any time taking Cerberus out of the equation."

She smirked. "We've got enough to worry about without waiting for the next time they'll knife us in the back. Besides, I've been wanting to show them the door from day one, I just didn't want to turn away potential resources. Now we've had the time to accrue our own, we don't need them." After she'd said it, though, she sighed, unable to shake the feeling that she was only trying to convince herself. Unable to shake the fears that then came rushing in. "I'm just worried they'll try to pull me back in somehow. EDI's shackles were Cerberus programming, too, so what if they can use her against us from the other side of the galaxy? Or what if they have surveillance or kill switches on the ship? Or if they really did do something to _me_ during the Lazarus Project and the scans didn't catch it—"

He quickly drew her to face him. "Hey. Miranda would know about all that, she'd warn you."

"Would she?"

"She was telling the truth when she said she was on your side. She might not cut ties with Cerberus completely just yet, but she won't let them go behind your back or put you at risk. She said it herself, she's put two years of her life into bringing you back and she wants to make sure you stay that way for as long as possible."

Terra smiled a little. It was true. Maybe she had misjudged Miranda just because of her allegiance. Maybe that could change.

"Besides, the Illusive Man wants the Collectors taken care of just as much as you do and he knows you're going to carry out the mission with or without him. Even if he wants to get back at you for turning your back on them, he's not going to risk doing it until after we've taken out that base."

She shrugged. "Or died trying and saved him the trouble."

"All the more reason not to die."

She laughed. She could always count on him to make her do that when things started getting dark.

He smiled. Hearing her laugh always made him happier. He took her hand, drawing closer. "So what do we do now?"

"Well, we still need to stop by the med bay and Mordin might want to check in with you about those upgrades and everything…" She smiled slyly as she drew closer to him in return. "…but then I think we have the rest of the day all to ourselves."

His sub-vocals hummed with enticement as he laid his head on hers. "That plan I'm looking forward to."

An hour later, they'd both received some light medical treatment and, after being cleared, Garrus had started putting some plans in motion for how to upgrade the weapons. Then they met in Terra's cabin and skipped straight past the conversation to the kissing. As she fell into her turian, Terra couldn't help but smile and think that they didn't need Cerberus at all. Whatever happened next, they could handle it.

Together.


	45. Rites and Reunions

Chapter 45: Rites and Reunions

Family is a place  
Just as it is a people  
It can be given or earned  
But it is still where you belong  
If it is real  
It can never be taken away

Terra was checking on their upgrades' progress the next morning when Jacob asked to see her. Apparently, before they started closing off the ship from Cerberus channels (or trying to, at least, since she was certain there was still some means of watching them), he'd received a notice that the ship his father had been stationed on ten years ago was suddenly sending out a distress call. She couldn't exactly blame him for wanting to go check it out, so with no other missions to worry about, they headed straight there. By the time they were done there, she almost wish they hadn't bothered. They saved the survivors, sure, and Jacob found some closure, but seeing the atrocities his father had committed there was difficult to come back from.

Actually, Garrus seemed to think that more than she did if the way he was clinging to her was anything to go by.

"Garrus," she finally had to tell him, "I'm fine. You're starting to make me think you're not."

He just looked at her. "I…I just thought that…what happened back there was so much like…like…"

Ah. Like slavery. If it was, it was a different kind than what the people of Mindoir endured. Though perhaps it was less how she was marked by such things and more how she could have been. She smiled softly as she took his hand. "Just another reason I'm glad to have you."

He smiled. "Should I be listing all the reasons I'm glad to have you?"

She laughed. "You'd start me off. We'd be here all day." She leaned in to kiss him, her heart set aflutter the second he touched her—

_CRASH!_

They separated sharply.

Terra blinked… "…did you just hear…?"

_BANG!_

Garrus winced. "Yes."

_"Shepard?" EDI came over the PA, "I believe your presence is required on the engineering deck."_

Terra barely paused to give Garrus an apologetic, "we'll pick this up later" look before rushing for the elevator and heading down to deck 4. She was worried the issue might be the engines, maybe even that one of the upgrades upset something, but that was quickly rectified when she stepped off and heard the chaos coming from Grunt's cabin. Not sure whether to be wary or angry, she headed in and found him stomping on a box. "Hey! Grunt! What's going on?!"

He growled furiously. "I…I don't know! I need…something!"

"Then talk to me. You don't have to smash the whole deck!"

"That's the problem! I'm tense, angry, more so than usual, like I just want to…_to_…RRRAAAHHH!" He stormed over to the window peering down at the cargo bay and slammed his head against it, cracking the glass. "See?! Why do that?! What's wrong with me?!"

She was pretty caught up on the fact that he had just cracked the glass on a spaceship window—albeit one that wasn't on the outside of the ship—to try processing what the issue might be. "I don't know, but you could rein it in before you break something we actually need to fly?!"

"I'm _trying_! When we're moving, fighting, it's under control. But here, my blood screams, my plates itch, everything I hear is _noise_, even you! I'm tank-bred. What's doing this?!"

Even with her experience with Wrex, though, she was no krogan expert. She wasn't sure what to do besides ask the AI. "EDI, do you or Mordin have any records of a medical condition that could cause this? Maybe a disease or something?"

_"Cerberus has a number of autopsies on file," EDI answered, "but nothing on a living krogan of this age and situation."_

Grunt shook his head. "My people were defeated by doctors and labs. They'd never let that stuff leave the home-world."

Terra wasn't letting the fact her operations were restricted to the Terminus Systems get in the way this time. Grunt needed her help and she was giving it to him. "EDI, tell Joker to set a course for Tuchanka."

Grunt breathed a little easier. "Thank you, Shepard. I don't like this. Anger is my choice, not a sickness."

Grunt seemed to get a hold of himself now that they were on route to a solution and Terra had made it clear he had to, but there were still crashes sounding from his cabin every few minutes all the way to Tuchanka. It didn't help that Tuchanka was such a long ways away from the Rosetta Nebula that it was practically the other side of the galaxy, a trip that would take almost a full day even with mass relay transport, and they didn't have anything to stop and kill on the way there to keep him calm. The crew was so anxious to get this taken care of that, by the time they actually arrived, Terra and Garrus were already on the shuttle ready to go and everyone else was about ready to push Grunt out the door with them.

They had landed at the krogan compound for all of 15 seconds before Garrus started getting glares from the locals. Terra kept her arm around him and her eyes on the offending parties, ready for anything. It wasn't likely the krogan would try anything with Grunt right behind them, but unlikely didn't mean guaranteed. He was still a turian, and turians weren't exactly welcome here. All the more reason for her to hurry to the clan chief who was likely to have their answers.

"Halt," the guard at the dais spoke as soon as they approached, "You must wait until the chief summons you. He is…in talks."

Terra wasn't sure whether to argue that their business was urgent or agree to follow their customs.

She didn't have to decide before she heard a familiar voice call "Shepard?"

When she realized the voice was coming from the throne, she gave the guard a smirk and pushed him aside. "Good enough?" She made her way up.

And found none other than Urdnot Wrex standing there, beaming at the sight of her. She didn't know if he started it or her, but they wound up in a bear hug as he guffawed heartily in her ear. "Shepard! My friend! I should've known the Void couldn't hold you!"

She laughed gleefully as she stepped back to look at him. "Wrex! It's so good to see you again!"

"You look good for dead, Shepard. Ah, the benefits of a redundant nervous system!"

She blinked. "Yeah, humans don't have that."

"Oh…it must've been painful, then."

Garrus shook his head as he stepped in. "Speaking of pleasant surprises, you're _chief_ now?"

Wrex smirked to Terra. "Come back from the dead and he's still following you around, huh?" He turned to Garrus to exchange the friendliest greeting a krogan had given to a turian in centuries. "Yes, after Virmire, I knew action had to be taken. I came back, took my place as leader of Clan Urdnot, and began uniting the krogan. When I am done, we will be one people again."

Terra couldn't help but smile. It was hard to believe this was the same mercenary who had told her the krogan were past all hope. He was the leader Tuchanka needed and deserved. She actually felt kind of proud.

The krogan standing behind Wrex disagreed. "You abandoned many traditions to get your way. Dangerous."

Wrex turned to the krogan in question and immediately head-butted him. "Speak when spoken to, Uvenk. I'll drag your clan to glory whether it likes it or not."

Terra didn't bother to repress the smirk she tossed to Uvenk as she followed Wrex back to his throne. _Very_ proud.

"So," Wrex finally asked, "what brings you here, Shepard?"

She gestured to Grunt. "I have a krogan on my crew. He, uh…hasn't been feeling well lately."

Wrex carefully examined Grunt as the young krogan stepped forward. "Where are you from, whelp? Was your clan destroyed before you could learn what is expected of you?"

"I have no clan," Grunt explained, "I was tank-bred by warlord Okeer. My line distilled from Kredak, Moro, Shiagur…"

Uvenk scoffed. "You recite warlords, but you are the offspring of a syringe!"

Terra glared at the krogan. She officially didn't like him.

"I am pure krogan!" Grunt snapped, "You should be in awe!"

"Okeer is a very old name," Wrex said as he came over to speak to Grunt directly, "A very hated name."

Grunt shook his head. "He is dead."

"Of course. You're with Shepard. How could he be alive?"

Terra glared at him. "Just tell us what's wrong with him!"

"There's nothing wrong with him," Wrex answered, "He's becoming a full adult."

Garrus groaned. "Adolescence? Can't we just take him to Omega and buy him a few dances?"

"What?" Terra immediately turned to glare at him.

"I don't care what aliens do!" Wrex waved them off, "Krogan undergo the Rite of Passage."

"Too far, Wrex!" Uvenk snapped, storming off, "Your clan may rule, but this _thing_ is not krogan!"

Terra glared after him again. Now she officially hated him.

Wrex scoffed. "Idiot." He turned to Grunt. "Well? Are you willing to stand with Urdnot?"

Grunt considered for a moment, looking out at the home-world he was seeing for the first time. Then he stood with purpose as he faced Wrex. "It is in my blood. It is what I am for."

Wrex smiled. "Good boy. Speak with the shaman. He'll set you on the path." He smirked at Terra. "That means you, too, Shepard. Hunt well."

Terra nodded. "It was good to see you again, Wrex. Don't be a stranger."

As they made their way up to the shaman, Terra kept an eye on Wrex. He seemed fit for his throne, like he was made for it. She was happy for him. If only his detractor wasn't raising so much trouble, already complaining to the shaman when they arrived and eying Grunt in disdain. Or was that disgust?

Terra stepped in immediately. "I don't care what this guy says. Grunt has the right to be here!"

The shaman smirked. "There's some fire. And from an alien! Oh, the shame this heaps on those who whine like pups."

Terra smirked in some measure of triumph at Uvenk.

Uvenk simply growled. "If this must stand on ritual, then I invoke a denial! My krantt stands against him. He has no one."

The shaman glared. "You try my patience. But Uvenk invokes correctly. Grunt, who is your krantt? Your allies who would fight and die on your behalf?"

Grunt looked down almost…sadly. He hadn't grown up on Tuchanka with friends among the krogan, he didn't have a clan to stand behind him.

Terra saw it differently. He had spent his entire life aboard the _Normandy_ with them. He was a crewmate. To her, that made him family. So she stepped up. She wasn't krogan, but she didn't care. "Us. We stand with Grunt as fellow warriors."

The shaman accepted, but Uvenk instantly started arguing again. "Aliens don't know strength! My followers are true krogan! Everything about Grunt is a lie!"

That did it. Terra already couldn't stand the guy, but now she was outright seeing red. So she acted on that rage.

Which ended in her following Wrex's example and head-butting him so hard he doubled over.

Garrus struggled not to react. If he did, he wasn't sure if he would start showing concern she might have hurt herself or if he'd burst out laughing.

The shaman fell in the latter camp. "HAHAHA! I like this human! She understands!"

Uvenk growled, glaring at all four of them. "We'll settle this elsewhere." With that, he stormed off.

Terra glared after him, waiting until he was gone to straighten herself up from that strike that definitely did not just crack her skull. …she hoped.

The shaman led them to a proving ground. Terra was ready to let Grunt take charge on this one, but he let her do it, starting with her readying weapons and hitting the keystone that would signal the beginning of the rite. At first, it wasn't so difficult. Waves of varren swarmed in from across the arena, easily sniped down by Terra or Garrus or charged and shotgun-blasted by Grunt. It was after that, when they were being assaulted by herds of fire-breathing klixen that it got a bit difficult, but still nothing they couldn't handle. No, what actually gave them trouble was the _thresher maw_.

"You've gotta be kidding me…" Terra groaned as she and Garrus ducked behind cover and Grunt started cheering.

It wasn't as simple as emptying every clip they had on the thing since it would just duck underground every 30 seconds. Luckily, she still had that flamethrower, but it didn't have a lot of range. Garrus had the range, but a sniper rifle could only do damage to a thresher maw if he got it right in the eye. So it was a matter of Terra drawing its fire so it would turn its flank to Garrus and take a sniper round in the face. Then while it thrashed in pain, Terra would be able to get close enough to flame it until it ducked back down. The tactic worked twice, wearing down the beast. The third time, Grunt outright let off a battle-cry, charged in, and jumped onto the beast's back, shooting it until it threw him off and, when it lunged to eat him, sending a full-powered shotgun round down its…well, maw. He wound up covered in guts while Terra and Garrus stared at him in amazement, but it was dead.

When it was over, though, Uvenk showed up. "You live. And you brought down the thresher maw. That has not been done in generations. Urdnot Wrex was the last."

Terra was content to believe that meant her krogan friends were the two strongest, but Uvenk thought otherwise. He wanted Grunt to join his clan, not as a warrior but as a trophy.

Predictably, Grunt preferred to kill the guy. And he did, emptying his shotgun into Uvenk as Terra and Garrus wiped out his krantt.

When they returned to the shaman, Grunt was named Urdnot…and claimed Terra as his battle-master. She felt…well, "flattered" was too light a word. She was happier than ever that they had brought the young krogan aboard.

"Well, that was fun," Garrus shook his head as they made their way back to the shuttle.

"It sure was!" Grunt hollered with delight.

Terra smirked. "Let's just head back to the ship and—"

_"Shepard! Need to speak with you before we leave Tuchanka."_

Terra quickly answered her COMM. "Mordin? What's going on?"

_"Shouldn't speak of it around krogan. Meet me in lab."_

Terra had yet to hear such urgency in the salarian's voice. When they were back on the ship, she headed straight up to the lab, not even bothering to drop off her gear. "Mordin, what's wrong?"

Mordin sighed. "Just received intel. Still processing." He looked at her seriously. "Back in STG, led team to investigate Tuchanka. Discovered krogan were adapting to genophage, recovering numbers."

Terra smiled. "That's wonderful! Why didn't you say something?"

"Because of response. Team developed genophage modification to counteract adaptation, bring krogan numbers back down."

She stopped smiling. "You…you did _what_?"

"Had to! Had krogan recovered, would have sought revenge! Chaos throughout galaxy!"

"Mordin, the first genophage was a war crime! Even the turians realize that! How could you recreate it?!"

"Necessary. Regrettable. …not why I called you. Fellow teammate, Maelon. Received word he was captured by Blood Pack on Tuchanka. Might…torture him. Make an example."

Terra still had strong feelings about the genophage she was ready to air out, but if one of Mordin's friends was in danger and they were already on Tuchanka, they didn't have time to debate. "Alright. Meet us at the shuttle, we'll head back down."

Mordin nodded. "Thank you. My student. Want to see him safe."

Terra went back down to the cargo bay to wait for him. Garrus apparently hadn't bothered leaving the cargo bay and was instead tending his rifle when she came down. She wouldn't have minded joining him, but Mordin prepared fast and was down in only a couple minutes. They headed straight back to the Urdnot compound and talked to the scout about the captured salarian. The scout pointed them to Clan Weyrloc, and they wasted no time heading over. There were Blood Pack all around the building, but they barely proved an obstacle. Even the locks on the door couldn't keep them out with Garrus there to hack in.

Mordin looked around as they entered the building. "Repurposed krogan hospital. Sturdy, built to withstand punishment."

Garrus sighed. "That's unfortunate. Hospitals aren't fun to fight through."

Terra gave him a curious look. "What _is_ 'fun to fight through'?"

He shrugged. "Gardens, electronics shops. Antique stores, but only if they're classy."

She smiled. _Leave it to Garrus._ She had to wonder how he developed those rankings, but that was a conversation for another time.

Krogan barred their way at every turn. It would've been a real struggle had Mordin not been capable of wearing down their armor or even immobilizing them. Good thing, too, because Terra didn't want to have to repeat her strategy with Garrus again and tackle every single one of these krogan. As it was, they all wound up easy targets and the squad was able to push through to the labs. What they found there confirmed that Weyrloc had captured Maelon to work on a cure for the genophage. Through some rather unfortunate methods.

Mordin stood firm over the subject until they found the body of a krogan female in one of the labs. He started looking her over. "Krogan. Female. Track marks showing repeated injections. No restraint marks. Volunteer. Infertile female, hoped for cure. …pointless…pointless waste of life."

Terra stepped in. "I didn't expect you to be so upset about this."

"Why? Because of genophage work? Irrelevant! No! _Causative_! Genophage necessary. Rachni Wars, Krogan Rebellions, all pointed to krogan aggression."

"The genophage was an act of desperation. We can find other ways now. Especially with Wrex in charge. It doesn't have to end in war."

Mordin shook his head. "Naïve viewpoint."

Terra wasn't going to stand for this. Mordin was her friend, but so were Wrex and Grunt. The turians had done what they thought was necessary because they'd been running out of options, but it had still been wrong. She couldn't stand by while he defended it. "The alternative was _this_." She gestured pointedly to the dead krogan woman. "How many more is it gonna take for you to see?" She didn't let him argue. She kept walking, heading into the next area. Mordin and Garrus followed without a word.

The last of the krogan opposition was accompanied by the Weyrloc chief himself, but Terra had lost the patience to deal with him. She only spent as much ammo as it would take to let his barrier down, then she had Mordin wear down his armor and shot a concussive shot at his feet that sent him plummeting down three stories. If that didn't kill him, the varren would. All that was left was the room where Maelon was being held. The second they opened the door, though, they found he wasn't being held at all.

"Maelon," Mordin said, "Alive. Unharmed. No signs of restraint, no evidence of torture. Don't understand."

Maelon shook his head. "For such a great scientist, you always had trouble believing evidence that disagreed with your preconceptions, doctor. How long will it take for you to realize I'm here because I wish to be?"

Terra looked at him in shock. "You went to the Weyrloc voluntarily?!"

"Impossible!" Mordin cried, "Entire team agreed. Project necessary!"

"How was I supposed to disagree with the great Mordin Solus?" Maelon sneered, "I was your student! I looked up to you!"

"Experiments performed here! Live subjects! _Prisoners_! Torture and executions! Your doing?!"

"We've already got the blood of millions on our hands, doctor! If it takes a little more to make it right, I'm willing to pay that!"

Much as Terra stood against the genophage, this was too far. "Forget it. We're shutting your project down, Maelon."

"Shutting down more than that," Mordin sneered.

That's when Maelon drew a gun. "You can't accept it. Won't accept that your brilliant mind forced you to commit an atrocity!"

And that's when Mordin lost it. He punched Maelon, knocking him back into the terminal he'd been working on and pinning him there with his own gun. "Unacceptable experiments. Unacceptable goals. Won't change. No choice. …have to kill you."

But much as Terra agreed that Maelon was in the wrong, this was no solution. "Wait!" She rushed over, grabbing Mordin by the wrist before he could fire. "You don't have to do this. You're not a murderer."

Mordin took a moment to consider, calmly stepping back. "No. Not a murderer. Thank you, Shepard."

Once Mordin had backed off, Terra dragged Maelon over and pushed him towards the door. "Get out. Before we change our minds."

"Where am I supposed to go?!" Maelon snapped.

"Don't care," Mordin snapped, "Try Omega, could always use another clinic." Once Maelon left the room, Mordin took a deep breath and turned to the terminal. "Apologies, commander. Misunderstood mission variables, no kidnapping. My mistake."

She didn't hold it against him. There was no way he could've known what was really happening here. And the reason they came didn't matter as long as it meant the experiments were over.

"Maelon's data. Should destroy. Still valuable, though."

Terra sneered at the terminal. "It's the data that includes experiments on living victims. It's tainted."

"Destroy data, deaths for nothing. Keep it, deaths _mean_ something."

That was true. He even seemed to believe it. As if he knew he might one day use it. Maybe she had misjudged him. He wanted what was best for the krogan. He had restored the genophage to protect them as much as to protect the galaxy's current way of life. He had done the wrong thing, true, but for the right reason. She couldn't blame him for his actions. But she could help him redeem them. "…you feel sorry for the krogan. For what's been done to them. You see the horror of what happened here. But you see the loss, too."

Mordin sighed. "Yes."

"The krogan don't deserve this, Mordin. Save the data."

"Point taken, Shepard. Transferring data, wiping local copy. Still years away from cure, but better than starting from scratch." He turned off the terminal. "Done. Ready to go. Ready to be off Tuchanka. Maybe go somewhere sunny."

Terra smiled. "Let's go."

When they prepared to leave Tuchanka that night, Mordin was back in the lab, finding a safe place for the data before setting back to work on the ship and gear upgrades. After such a long day, Terra was glad to crawl into bed. Before she could fall asleep possibly restlessly, though, her COMM beeped. She smiled, already knowing who was there.

Garrus was in the process of setting aside the battery algorithms and heading to his bunk when he called. "So what's the plan for tomorrow? _Taming_ a thresher maw?"

She smirked as she rolled her eyes and starting working on her sketchbook. "Maybe we should take a few days to calm down."

"Yeah, that'll be the day."

"We would eventually run out of things to shoot at either way."

He smiled while he was preparing to turn in. He was glad they'd started doing this. "Are you at least sleeping better?"

"A little. I think it actually calmed down even more when I stopped talking to the Illusive Man."

"Yeah, that would do it. Don't humans have psychological reactions to stress?"

"Well, all species do, it's just that humans sometimes have physical ones, too. I'm fine so far. …better with you." It was only after she said so that she realized she was sketching the Archangel mark from his armor. She smiled as she carefully etched the curves on the golden wings and thought of the one who carried them.

Two decks below, he was struggling to think of how to say what he needed to. "I, uh…I called Sol."

Terra froze when she heard that but quickly brought herself to keep going to take her mind off of it. "You didn't…tell her, did you? About me?"

"No. I just let her know that the 'private security' job I was working ended badly and I was going somewhere else. And I might be out of contact before long."

Understandable, though she suddenly wished she had been involved in the conversation, regardless of her reasons for not contacting the other Vakarians until the mission was over. "And your mom?"

He sighed sadly. "Not doing well, but not getting worse just yet. I'm honestly kind of glad I'm not there."

She hated to admit it, but… "…yeah, I kind of am, too."

"We're doing what we can from here. Hopefully, it'll pay off soon."

She nodded. "We can _only_ hope."

He finally realized there was nothing more to say on the matter and leaving it there wasn't going to help her sleep. "Whatever happens, we still have each other."

She smiled again when she heard him say that. "Always. Those two years were hard enough, I'm not doing that again."

"You said it."

She kept talking until she was done with her drawing, though they quickly reached the phase where they were talking about nothing and just enjoying the sound of each other's voices. When she set her sketchbook aside, she told him they should probably stop talking and get some sleep. "I feel like I actually can right now. Thanks."

"Anything for you, Terra."

She could tell he meant that. Just as much as she meant it for him. "…I love you."

He smiled every time he heard her say that. Every time, it seemed like she meant it even more. "I love you." He knew he did.

After she hung up and started to fall asleep, the sound of his voice saying those words lingered in the silence. For the first night since her resurrection, she didn't have a single nightmare. She didn't remember any, but she woke up the next morning with the tranquil feeling of waking up from a blissful dream.


	46. An Eye For An Eye

Chapter 46: An Eye for an Eye

Vengeance is an illness  
Not of the body  
Nor of the mind  
But of the soul  
It kills many  
But those afflicted, it destroys  
The only cure is the hardest trial  
Forgiveness

"You did not!"

"I did."

"How did you convince them to go along with that?"

"Even at 16, I was _very_ persuasive."

Tali laughed. "Clearly. I wish I could've seen Garrus' face."

Terra smirked. "He was quite shocked to see me, that's for sure." As her quarian friend continued checking the systems for ways to implement her shield upgrades, Terra was relaying the story of her misadventure stowing away on Garrus' scouting tour. It was a slow day so far and it was nice to just get to talk to her friend, even if she was working at the same time.

"I take it the rest of the crew weren't so happy to have a human onboard," Tali remarked as she ducked down below her console to fiddle with some wires.

Terra shrugged. "Most of them kept the complaints to themselves, but there were a couple who really didn't like me. I took care of that by beating one of their golden boys in a sparring match."

Tali looked at her in amazement. "Seriously?"

"_Seriously_. You should've seen that guy's reaction to getting trounced by a little human farm girl."

Tali almost started laughing. "You should've had Garrus record that."

"Oh, I should've!" Just like that, she was laughing with her. It felt good to do that. The only other person she'd bonded with so easily was Solana. Maybe Tali was getting to be like a sister to her as well.

They continued the conversation for another minute or so before Terra's COMM pinged. Tali was fiddling with the wiring again, so she left her to it and answered. "Shepard."

_"Terra. Do you have a minute?"_

She smiled at the sound of his voice. "I always have time for you, Garrus."

_But she couldn't hear any shift in his tones that implied he was smiling with her. "Meet me in the battery. We need to talk."_

She started getting worried when the line disconnected. She could tell something was wrong. "Tali—"

"Go on," Tali waved her off without even coming out from under the console, "If he needs you, he needs you."

Terra smiled briefly. "I'll be back when I can." She quickly headed around the corner to the elevator. She only needed to take it up one floor, but she still felt like it was going too slow. When the doors opened, she raced straight into the main battery. "Garrus!" she said as the doors opened, "What's wrong?"

Garrus was positioned at the console, but he clearly wasn't paying any attention to the algorithms scrolling across it. With a sigh, he turned to face her. "…you remember what happened on Omega? Sidonis?"

She nodded.

"…I've found him."

Her eyes widened at those words. "What?"

"Someone saw him on the Citadel with a forger named Fade, specializes in helping people disappear. If we can get to him, we can get to Sidonis."

Terra didn't need to hear any more. If they had a chance of catching the guy who had nearly killed her turian, they were taking it. She'd make sure of it. "EDI! Tell Joker to set a course for the Serpent Nebula."

_"Right away, Shepard," EDI answered._

Garrus sighed with relief at those words. "I can never thank you enough for this, Terra."

"You don't need to thank me," Terra shook her head, "I want to stop him as much as you do. Just like Saleon." She smiled conspiratorially. "So what say we do this just you and me again?"

He smiled with her. "Let's do it."

It took a few hours for the ship to reach the Citadel, time Terra and Garrus used to gear up and prepare. They didn't know what to expect, after all, and Terra's Spectre status would give them free reign. Terra was ready to lend him emotional support at a moment's notice, because even Garrus couldn't pretend to be perfectly fine with hunting down someone he used to trust or with the betrayal they were out to avenge, but he stayed quiet for now. Once they were docked, the two of them left the ship hand in hand, ready for anything.

"Where are we going?" Terra asked, following him for once.

"I arranged a meeting with Fade at a warehouse on Zakera Ward," Garrus answered, "Just stay close."

"Oh, I'm not leaving your side."

He couldn't help a small smile when he heard her say that. Friend or girlfriend, some things never changed.

They made their way from the docks to the warehouse, still hand in hand. It seemed no different from their outings on the Citadel in the past, sticking close to each other as he showed her around the station, but it was as different as could be. There was no stopping to see the sights or detours for the sake of passing time together. They moved with purpose, soldiers on a mission—a personal mission, at that—and didn't stop moving until they arrived at their destination. Only then did they let go of each other and prepare for things to go south.

The warehouse was empty except for two krogan bodyguards, standing there, waiting for them, ready for a fight. A volus then stepped out from behind a stack of boxes.

"You're Fade?" Terra asked, "You're not quite how I pictured you."

"Looks can be deceiving," the volus said, "Now, which one of you wants to disappear?"

"I'd rather see you make someone reappear," Garrus sneered.

"Oh…that's not the service we provide."

"Make an exception," he snapped, drawing his rifle, "just this once."

The volus, of course, freaked out and turned to the krogan. "Quick! Shoot them! Shoot them, you lumbering mountains!" Then he turned back to face the two of them and found that Terra had drawn her pistol as well.

"Why don't you two find somewhere else to skulk?" Garrus told the krogan.

The two exchanged looks and finally stepped away.

"What?!" the volus demanded, "That's it?! Just like that?!" He groaned. "What's the point in hiring protection if they won't protect you?"

Terra took a moment to smirk at the irony before stepping in to continue the intimidation. "We're looking for one of your clients, Fade. I suggest you start talking."

The volus instantly shrunk back. "Not mine! I'm not Fade! I just work for him!"

Terra sighed, putting her gun away. "I knew it."

Garrus lowered his rifle and stepped closer to the volus, kneeling down to eye level with him. "Well, then maybe you'd like to tell us where to find him."

"Yes, of course!" the volus answered, "He's in the factory district. Works out of the old prefab foundry."

Garrus nodded. "I know the place."

"Oh, he's got a lot of mercenaries there. Blue Suns. Harkin thinks they're protecting him."

"Harkin?!" Garrus demanded, jumping to his feet.

"What?" Terra asked, "Who's Harkin?"

"We worked together at C-Sec!"

"What?! How'd a C-Sec agent end up a wanted forger?!"

"He was always getting suspended for drinking on the job. He must have finally gotten fired while I was on Omega."

"Oh, he did," the volus explained, "He used his knowledge of C-Sec's systems to help a few people disappear. Then he made himself disappear and Fade was born! …so to speak."

Terra could tell she wasn't going to like the guy. And he wasn't going to cooperate easily. "We'd better get to the factory district fast if we're gonna catch him."

"Right," Garrus said, "There's a transit station not far from here. We can get to the foundry that way."

"So…" the volus said, "…I can go?"

"Oh, sure. But if we don't find Harkin, we'll be back for you." He said that with a threatening wave of his rifle, accompanied by a reach for her pistol from Terra.

"…oh…good." The volus finally walked off.

Garrus stowed his rifle and led Terra off to the transit station. All the way there, Terra kept an eye on her turian. He was tensing already. To anyone else, he might seem stoic and reserved, but she could see the pain in his eyes and the fury in his posture. She quickly laid her hand on his arm to calm him and remind him she was there. He accepted the gesture, laying his hand over hers in return, but he didn't seem to calm at all. Maybe it was because she had laid her hand over the mark on his armor and reminded him of the people who'd borne it with him, the people who had died because of the one they were looking for now. She didn't have the words for this one, so she merely stayed close to him until they arrived then followed him to the foundry.

When they arrived, a human who could only be Harkin was entering the foundry with a small contingent of guards. He stopped when he heard Terra and Garrus show up and draw their weapons. He didn't take long to turn to the mercs standing guard. "Well, don't just stand there! Stop them! _Stop them_!" He then rushed into the building.

"RUN ALL YOU WANT, HARKIN!" Garrus shouted after him as he pulled his rifle out again, "WE'LL FIND YOU!" He then ducked behind cover with Terra as the mercs opened fire.

There weren't enough mercs at the door to keep them from entering. There was a slightly larger contingent, accompanied by a few mechs, waiting inside, but that was no more difficult. Garrus was able to overload the mechs to immobilize them, giving Terra the chance to take them out while he sniped every mercenary that came within 100 meters of them. As they made their way deeper into the factory, Terra occasionally glanced at Garrus and saw that same tension rising. She couldn't blame him, he'd been hurt badly, but she didn't like seeing him this way. The Garrus she loved was upbeat, compassionate, a little cocky. This Garrus was different, colder. Every target he dropped only made it worse. She started pushing harder to get them through to the other end of the factory. The sooner this was over, the sooner he could think straight again.

They eventually made it to a security room and stopped to catch their breath. While Garrus was opening the shutters on a window to scope out the last section of the foundry, Terra was scoping out him. Even just standing here, he was getting angrier by the second. She finally walked up to him as he gazed out the window. "You worked with Harkin at C-Sec?"

"He always was a pain," Garrus growled, "But I'm in no mood for his games. If he doesn't cooperate, I'll beat him within an inch of his life."

That confirmed it for her. Something was wrong—not with the mission, but with _him_. "Garrus, you're starting to worry me. I've never seen you like this before."

The words didn't seem to penetrate, though. "Harkin may know why Sidonis wanted to disappear. If he does, then he knows why we're here and I don't want him tipping Sidonis off."

She shrugged. "Fair enough. But you're still acting kind of…_rough_. Are you sure you're OK?" She started to reach for his hand again.

He pulled back before she could touch it. "I'm not going to be OK until Sidonis is dealt with!"

She looked at him, certain there was more behind those words than she was willing to hear. As he pulled back, he briefly met her eyes. The raging fire she saw in his brought realization crashing into her mind. "…Garrus…what exactly are you planning to do when you find him?"

He had been reluctant to say so until now because he knew she would try to talk him down. Now she was figuring it out, and since she was going to see when the time came anyway, he knew he didn't have a choice but to answer her. So he did. "You humans have a saying: 'An eye for an eye, a life for a life.'" He stood firm while he said it, as if it was only logical. "He owes me ten lives. I intend to collect."

She knew it was anything but. She found her eyes widening in shock. "Garrus, no! That's not the answer!"

He'd been expecting this. He hated to disregard her like this, but his mind was made up. "You can't talk me out of it, Terra. I have to do this."

"No, you don't! You don't answer bloodshed with more blood."

He just scoffed at her. "Oh, really? Saren, Saleon, the Collectors—"

"That's different! They were out to hurt people, they didn't give us a choice. This is petty revenge!"

"This is justice! If I don't do this, no one will! He killed ten people who trusted him, Terra, and I can't let him get away with that!" He turned away from her, looking back out the window. "I'll pull the trigger. I'll live with the consequences. It'll be quick and painless. Unlike everyone he betrayed, he'll be spared the agony of a slow death."

"And you think I'm just gonna stand by while you turn yourself into a _murderer_?"

"I appreciate your concern, Terra. But I'm not you."

She looked at him sadly. "…this isn't you either."

He didn't answer. He could hear the hurt in her voice and know he was the cause of it. That stung almost as badly as Sidonis' betrayal. He'd come too far to turn back now, but he was regretting roping her into it. He'd thought he could count on her for anything. He should've known she wouldn't let him do this.

She shook her head. "You didn't finish it."

He looked at her in confusion. "What?"

"That saying you're leaning on? There's more. 'An eye for an eye…makes the whole world blind.'"

He saw her meaning. He didn't know how to respond.

He didn't have to, though. They both turned to the window just in time to see something mechanical moving through the shadows. They quickly ducked away from the glass, both pulling their rifles.

"Did you just see that?" Garrus asked.

"Yeah," Shepard answered, "Looks like Harkin's getting ready for us."

"We'd better keep moving." He turned to open the door to the next room.

"Lead the way. …and Garrus? _We're not done_."

He sighed. "No…we're not." Before she could respond, he opened the door and rushed out with her right behind him.

The room was filled with mechs, none of which gave Garrus any trouble, and mercs, none of which were a match for Terra. The human and the turian stormed through, taking out with ease anyone who got in their way. Before long, the end was in sight and…

"Ah, crap!" Garrus said, "Two heavy mechs! Incoming!"

Terra quickly followed him behind some crates for cover. Sure enough, two YMIR mechs dropped in from above and immediately started shooting at them both. One they could handle, but with both firing at once, it would be hard to line up shots. Terra was starting to wish they'd brought Tali so she could hack one into firing on the other.

…wait a minute.

Terra groaned. "Oh, I've got a really stupid idea."

Garrus looked at her warily. "Do I want to hear it?"

"No, you'd just agree it was stupid. Cover me." Before he could question her, she ducked around. She stayed low as she moved closer, making Garrus the easier target temporarily, sneaking around to get behind the mech closest to her. Once she could, she climbed onto a crate, ran across it towards the mech, and jumped off to drop onto its head. In the time it took the mech to realize she was on top of it and start attempting to pry her off and slam her into the ground, the other mech caught sight of her and targeted her. Right as both were ready to attack, she kicked back off. The other mech's shot hit this one right in the head with so much force that its claw that was reaching up to grab her essentially punched itself. The damage was enough that one shotgun round from her took it out, leaving the other mech the last one standing.

Once he was clear to, Garrus overloaded the shields on the second mech and fired until it exploded. After the fight was over, he turned to glare at Terra. "That _was_ stupid!" As he stowed his rifle, though, he looked at the remains of the mechs. "…brilliant, well-executed, and effective…but _stupid_!"

She smirked. "I love you, too." Before he could tell her off again, she nodded to the room Harkin was holed up in. It was a simple climb up. From there, Garrus could sneak around while Terra opened the main door and moved in, holding her pistol up and aiming at Harkin.

Harkin started to back away. "You were close, but not close enough—!" He began to head out the door only for Garrus to cut him off with a gun to the face. As Garrus stowed his weapon, Harkin recoiled in pain, grabbing his nose as if it were broken.

Garrus then grabbed him by the arm and slammed him against the wall. "So, _Fade_, couldn't make yourself disappear, huh?"

"Come on, Garrus, we can work this out," Harkin pleaded, "What do you need?"

Garrus backed off. "I'm looking for someone."

"Well, then I guess we both have something the other one wants."

Garrus answered that by kicking him in the groin.

Terra stepped over then. "We're not here to bargain or ask favors, Harkin."

"You don't say," Harkin groaned in pain, clutching his gut as he pulled himself back to his feet.

"You helped a friend of mine disappear," Garrus said, "I need to find him."

"I might need a little more information than that."

"His name's Sidonis. Turian, came from the—"

"I know who he is! And I'm not telling you squat! I don't give out client information, it's bad for business."

Garrus then grabbed him by the head and yanked him down to knee him in the chest. When the forger was on the floor, he placed his foot against his collarbone. "You know what else is bad for business? A BROKEN NECK!" Terra actually laughed at that one.

"Alright!" Harkin groaned under the pressure, "Alright! Get off me!"

Terra stopped laughing when she realized the forger was actually in pain, finally placing a hand on Garrus' shoulder to signal him enough was enough.

Harkin caught his breath as Garrus stepped off, dragging himself up from the floor. "Terminus really changed you, huh, Garrus?"

Garrus looked away, casting a fleeting glance to Terra. "…among other things. …Sidonis…opened my eyes." He didn't give himself a chance to see the regret and sorrow in Terra's eyes. He just turned back to Harkin. "Now arrange a meeting."

Harkin got up and looked between him and the nearby console.

Garrus pointedly nodded to it.

"I'm going, I'm going." He went over to the console and activated the call. "Hey. It's me. There's a chance your identity may be compromised."

As the turian on the other end of the line answered, Garrus discreetly began to inspect his rifle.

"That's why I'm calling. I'm sending over an agent. Where do you wanna meet?"

But Terra saw what Garrus was doing. She knew him too well not to know what he was thinking…

"Alright, he'll be there. Don't worry. I got it covered." He then finished the call and walked back over to Garrus. "You're all set. He'll meet you in front of the Orbital Lounge. Middle of the day. So if our business is concluded, I'll just be going—"

Garrus grabbed him before he could make a move. "I don't think so. You're a criminal now, Harkin."

"So, what? You're just gonna kill me? That's not your style, Garrus."

Garrus stared him down for a moment before finally pushing him back. "Kill you? No. …but I don't mind slowing you down a little." He aimed his rifle at Harkin's leg—

Terra made her move the second the gun came up, grabbing hold of his wrist and shifting it so the shot hit the ceiling. "You don't have to shoot him. He can't hide from C-Sec now."

Garrus pushed her off, putting his gun away rather than taking note of the dismayed way she reacted to how callously he'd brushed her aside. "I guess it's your lucky day, Harkin."

"Yeah," Harkin sneered, "I hope we can do this again real soon."

Garrus glared at him and head-butted him. Then he looked back at Terra and saw her giving him a look with her arms folded. "What? I didn't shoot him."

Terra sighed, shaking her head at him as she led him back over to the door. "Come on. Let's get out of here."

"Sidonis better be there. Or I'm coming back to finish the job."

Those words were too far, where Terra was concerned. She stayed quiet as Garrus drove a skycar to the lounge, but the second he parked on a balcony across the way from it, she turned to say something. "What was _that_?!"

He didn't even look at her. He knew what she meant and he wasn't about to let her talk him down. "Harkin's a menace. We shouldn't have let him go! He deserves to be punished!"

"And he will be. Just not like that! We don't just shoot everybody that ticks us off!"

"We stop people who break the law, don't we?"

"Is this Garrus talking or Archangel?"

He froze when he heard that one. As usual, she saw right through him. Apparently, better than he did.

She didn't like what she was seeing. If this was what he had become by losing her, she would've given anything to go back and turn down that mission to wipe out geth that weren't even there. "…Garrus, you're shutting me out."

He was. He couldn't do this. But he had to. His team needed him to do this. She needed him not to. He couldn't say one mattered more than the other, but he refused to push her away. …but Sidonis. Sidonis who he had trusted, who had turned on him, who had left him to die…

"Garrus, it's not too late…" she started trying to talk him down, "…we can just walk away—" She started to reach for him.

That was more than he could take. "TEN MEN ARE DEAD BECAUSE OF HIM!" he finally shouted, storming out of the skycar.

"Will killing the eleventh bring them back?!" she snapped back. When he didn't respond, she got out of the skycar as well and stepped over to him. "I know what it's like to lose the people you care about, to watch them suffer and die. You know I do."

He kept his eyes on the floor, but she could tell those words got to him. "…yeah. I do." He shook his head, not sure what to say. "So where does that leave us?"

She didn't have an answer. She took a step back and sighed. "…I don't know." She couldn't talk him down this time. She could stay here all day and he would just keep breaking. He needed to do something to work this out for himself. The only action he could see to do that was to pull the trigger. Betrayal cut too deep to heal in so brief a time. Vengeance cut even deeper, though—so deep it _never_ healed. And she refused to let him crumble.

Words couldn't solve this. Only action could. Action she had to take.

Realizing what she had to do, she turned to Garrus again. "Alright. What's the plan?"

Garrus had never known her to give up this easily, but they didn't have time to keep arguing. He looked around her at the balcony. "I can get a clear shot from over there."

She followed his gaze and saw the spot he was pointing out, an overlook directly across from the lounge itself. "What do you want me to do?"

"Just get him into position. I'll take care of the rest." He then walked past her to the balcony, drawing his sniper rifle along the way.

She watched him go, then she climbed back into the skycar and drove it down to the lounge.

On the balcony, Garrus peered through the scope at her and turned on his COMM. "Terra? Can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear," she answered into her own as got into position.

Garrus scanned the area until he caught sight of their target. "Alright, there he is. Wave him over and keep him talking."

Terra looked and saw a turian sitting by the lounge entrance. When he looked her way, she gestured for him to come over.

"Let's make this quick," Sidonis said as he stepped up.

"You're in my shot," Garrus warned her, "Move to the side."

Terra didn't. This was it. It was now or never. "Listen, Sidonis, I'm here to help you."

"Don't ever say that name out loud!" Sidonis snapped.

"I'm Garrus' friend. He wants you dead."

"What?! Is this some kind of joke?!"

"TERRA!" Garrus snapped into the COMM, "That does it! If he moves, I'm taking the shot!"

Sidonis noticed Terra responding to the COMM signal. "Oh no…you're not kidding, are you?" When she answered with a look of affirmation, he started to back off. "Forget this. Tell Garrus I've got my own problems." He started to walk away.

Terra quickly grabbed him by the wrist. "Don't move!"

"Get off me!" he snapped, pushing her away.

"I'm the only thing standing between you and a hole in the head!"

Sidonis caught onto her meaning and cursed under his breath. "Look, I didn't wanna do it! I didn't have a choice!"

"Everyone has a choice," Garrus growled from the balcony.

"They got to me! They said they'd kill me if I didn't do it! What was I supposed to do?!"

"Let me take the shot, Terra! He's a filthy coward!"

Terra didn't take his advice. She followed Sidonis to the rails, careful to keep in front of him so Garrus couldn't fire. "That's it? You were just trying to save yourself?!"

"I know what I did," Sidonis said sadly, "I know they died because of me. And I have to live with that. Every night, I wake up sick and sweating, each of their faces staring at me, accusing me. I don't sleep. Food has no taste. I'm already a dead man. Some days…I just want it to be over."

"Just give me the chance," Garrus said.

Terra quickly gave all her attention to her COMM: "Garrus, _no_."

"He deserves to die!"

"He's already paying!"

"He hasn't paid enough! He still has his life!"

"Look at him! What kind of life is this? There's nothing left to kill."

"My men…they deserved better."

She instantly turned to look up at him. "So do you. _Please_."

"Tell Garrus…" Sidonis said. He sighed. "Forget it. I guess there's nothing I can say to make it right."

Garrus froze on the balcony, those words tearing through his resolve. This was still the man he had fought beside for nearly two years. As Terra had said about Mordin, one wrong choice didn't have to define him. _Terra…_ She was still standing firmly in his line of fire, knowing he would die before taking the shot with her in the way. The way she was looking at him did as much damage as Sidonis' confession. She needed him right now. If he did this… "…just…go. Tell him to go."

Terra smiled with relief before returning her attention to Sidonis. "He's giving you a second chance, Sidonis. Don't waste it."

"I won't," Sidonis said, "I'll find some way to make it up to you, Garrus!" He looked at Terra. "…thank you…for talking to him."

She nodded at first. Then she turned off her COMM so Garrus couldn't hear her as she spoke to Sidonis directly. "I didn't do it for you. What you did hurt the person I care most about, it nearly killed him. It's not my place to make you pay for that. But if I see you again…"

He shrunk back. "…right. Don't worry. You won't."

She simply stepped away. "Make this right." With that said, she left. Before she took the skycar back up, she looked over to see Sidonis walking away, sullen and reserved. Her words wouldn't go to waste on him.

When she met Garrus on the balcony, she found him slumped in a corner, his sniper rifle laid out in his lap as he looked down at it shakily. "I couldn't do it. I couldn't…"

She sighed as she sat down beside him. "I know."

"This isn't right. My men deserved…" He couldn't say it either. The thought of what he'd just done struck him like a failure, drawing him to throw his rifle over to the skycar with a growl of…fury? Despair? Even he didn't know anymore. "Why couldn't you just let me take the shot?!"

Terra simply looked at him. "…because I love you."

That wasn't the answer he was expecting. He looked at her, not even sure how to react.

She took his hand, letting him see the patience and sympathy in her eyes. "Avenging and vengeance intersect along a very thin line…over a very deep chasm. You were walking that line all night, Garrus…and I couldn't bear to see you fall in."

He clung to her as her meaning sunk in. Looking back on the events of the past few hours, he could see how his drive had blinded him. And through all that, she had been right there, fighting to pull him back. "…you were right. You were warning me all along and I wouldn't listen to you."

"Don't. I'm right here." She laid her head on his, the hand tight around his talons drifting up to softly caress his scars. "I'm never leaving you again. Please don't leave me."

If there was anything that could make him feel like himself again after sinking so deep, it was his human. Her touch, her voice, her affection, her plea…he couldn't deny her anything. Especially not this. "No. Never." He held her close, his inner turmoil fading away with every second her felt her holding onto him in return. Even as he lost himself, she had stayed with him. As if he needed proof that she loved him as much as she claimed. It was only when his gaze drifted over to the balcony that he started to pull away. At long last, he sighed, stepping over to the skycar. "Let's go. I need some distance from this place."

She nodded, following. "Yeah. You and me both."


	47. Just For a Moment

Merry Christmas, everyone. Hope you enjoy some Shakarian as a present. ;)

Chapter 47: Just For a Moment

There are moments we wish would never end  
There are days we dream of living again  
There are nights that pass by silently  
And there are nights that linger eternally

Garrus didn't say a thing for the entire skycar ride back to the docks. Terra found herself once again watching him for some sign that he needed her. The tension and rage that had been worrying her for the past several hours had given way to varying layers of remorse. She wasn't sure if she should do something or if it was best left on its own, so she merely stayed close and watched the passing scenery.

When they parked up and Garrus still wasn't talking even as he got out, though, she knew she had to say something. "So we're just gonna put it behind us now? Like nothing happened?"

He stopped dead in his tracks, but he didn't turn back to look at her. "Terra, I can't do this yet."

"Why not? I'm supposed to be the one person you can always talk to."

He knew she was right. He still didn't look at her.

She finally stepped over, reaching to take his hand and comfort him.

He didn't give her the chance. As soon as he realized she was there, he turned and walked away, this time stepping over to the railing overlooking the docks.

She didn't give up that easily. She followed him, looking out at the _Normandy_ and the ships coming and going across the view of the nebula. She stayed quiet but also close by, waiting for him to speak his mind.

He could only keep silent for so long before the weight of her presence compounded with his thoughts so heavily… "…I just can't stop feeling like I let them down."

She shook her head. "You did the right thing, Garrus. They would've known that."

"Then why doesn't it feel like I did?"

She didn't have an answer at first. But she knew Garrus well enough to need only a moment of consideration before she realized what the answer must be. "Because you're not letting it go."

He looked at her now, more out of confusion than anything. "What?"

"You couldn't stop it, so you had to find someone to take it out on. The merc leaders were the ones who were actually responsible, but I killed them for you. Sidonis was just the only other person involved who you could reach. So when you heard what happened and you couldn't take the shot, you reached the logical conclusion that it must not have been his fault and started looking for someone else to blame. …and decided it could only be yourself."

He withdrew, trying to push away the thought before he could realize it was true. "That's not—"

"You had no way of knowing what was going to happen, Garrus," she told him as she turned to face him directly, "You did everything you could."

"And it wasn't enough!" He flinched the second he said it. There it was, proof that she'd seen right through him where he couldn't see for himself. Now that it was out in the open, though, he actually felt worse.

Terra could see that. So she figured there was only one thing she could do. "I think there's something you need to see." Once Garrus was giving her his full attention, she turned on her omni-tool and scrolled to a certain message she had recently received.

From: Nalah Butler  
To: Terra Shepard  
My husband was one of the men serving on Garrus' team. I don't know how much Garrus talked to you about what happened. I don't know the specifics myself, only that my husband died in a trap set by those monstrous gangs. I know Garrus blames himself; he took every shot fired at his squad as a failure on his part, and it was clear when he sent me the message about my husband that he thinks it was his fault.  
My husband would never have wanted that. He was proud of the work he did on Garrus' squad. He was taking back Omega from the gangs. He died fighting with honor. I miss him. I'd give anything to get him back. But whatever happened there wasn't Garrus' fault.  
You're his commander now. Please, if you can, help him stop blaming himself. And please don't tell him that I sent you this. Thank you.

Garrus was still staring at the message even after she turned off the display. "When did you get this?"

Terra sighed. "After we got back from Zorya. When you weren't talking to me."

He didn't know what to say. He had only met Nalah briefly, yet even she had picked up on how easily he succumbed to this reaction. He wondered if she would've bothered sending that message had she known who Terra really was to him.

Terra took his hand before he could pull away again, clutching it so tightly that he saw before she even said it why she couldn't stay quiet about this. "Garrus, I can't do this without you. I need you. I know it's not fair of me to ask you this, but you have to move on."

He could hear it in her voice and see it in her eyes what she feared the stakes would be—that blaming himself would make him more reckless than usual and he'd get hurt again like on Omega. Or worse. No, she was carrying too much to face this alone and she had been through enough without facing the possibility of losing him like she had that day. He couldn't promise her anything he couldn't guarantee he could do, but he had to try. For her. So he nodded, letting her know that.

She breathed easier then. And swiftly began searching for something else to talk about. Simply by examining their surroundings, she found one that made her smile. "You know, this is about where we had a similar conversation the day you met Anderson."

He smirked. "Actually, I think it was back there." Without even looking, he pointed to a bench behind him and across a walkway.

She glanced over, almost laughing at his uncanny precision as she recognized that was, in fact, where they had been sitting when she had talked him down from the disaster that was the Saleon case. She couldn't resist dragging him over there now.

"This doesn't feel any different," he pointed out even as he sat down with her.

"Just go with it," she shook her head at him. It actually didn't feel any different for her either, but a change of scenery could only do them good. And looking back on that day now, knowing how she really felt about him… She smiled. "You know, even after all this time, you're _still_ the most determined, brave, and capable person I've ever met. And you definitely still don't let anything get in your way."

He looked at her carefully. She gave the words of a friend while her eyes gleamed with something deeper. "…so much has changed."

She nodded. "And so much has stayed the same."

He kept his eyes on her, thinking back to better days and thinking forward to hopefully more to come. The hand not tight in her grasp drifted across her thigh to her waist. They were close enough that every breath he took brought her scent to mind. "Have we changed?"

She stayed lost in his sapphire gaze, the sound of his voice stoking the flame within her that wanted so badly to fall into him completely. "We have…but how we feel hasn't." She laid her head on his reassuringly. "And it never will."

He smiled. "It's nice to know we'll always have that to hold onto."

She agreed. This whole galaxy could fall apart someday soon, but the one thing she would always know was that she and Garrus had each other to lean on, that they were in love. In the end, that was all she needed.

They stayed there together for nearly three minutes before Garrus finally sighed and stood up, his hand still wrapped around hers. "Come on. The crew's probably expecting us back any minute now."

At first, Terra nodded and followed. Before they reached the airlock, though, she thought of something. She smiled, drawing Garrus to stop and look at her. "You know, we don't have any leads at the moment and the squad could use some time off…if you want some time alone."

He looked at her in amazement as her meaning sunk in. She was making it clear she wanted this as much as he did, though, so he smiled and agreed. "Let's drop off our gear and I'll show you the sights again."

Exactly what she wanted to hear. She was brimming with joy when they got back on the ship. She changed from her armor to civvies in record time to make sure she was waiting at the airlock when he came to meet her there, immediately taking his hand and hurrying back out to the Wards.

There wasn't much of the Citadel he hadn't already showed her, but neither of them cared. Just being alone together, no expectations or time limits, was enough. Watching her as she clung to him, as she admired the scenery with an artist's eye, he couldn't help but remember all those times she had followed him around the Presidium and stopped to capture a view. Couldn't help but admire the sight of her the same way. He felt more like himself beside her. He wanted her all to himself, but she was too selfless for that. Just one more thing he loved about her.

For a while, they were content to wander around close to each other. Then Terra started getting restless and asked if there was somewhere they could go to be _alone_ together. Garrus didn't know of many places on the station that weren't public access that she would be interested in. Then he started thinking outside the box about it and came up with an idea.

She noticed the mischievous smile on his face rather readily. "Should I not have asked that?"

"Too late now," he retorted before leading her off. They made their way out of Zakera Ward and up to the Presidium, strolling casually along the walkways around the reservoir. Then, when they came to an area near the end that had no eyes on it, Garrus hopped over the railing.

Terra reacted appropriately and stared at him in shock. "Are you serious?"

"There's a maintenance catwalk to access the purifiers that no one but keepers is using at this time of day, you do still have a Spectre all-access pass, and even C-Sec doesn't patrol this far."

"Yeah, because no one's crazy enough to climb down there!"

"Come on, Shepard, where's that adventurous spirit I know so well?"

"Taking a nap so my sanity can have a rare turn at the controls."

"Do you want that alone time or not?" he nudged as he held his hand out for her.

She didn't bother answering. He knew just what to say to get to her. Coupled with the way he was looking at her, she didn't have it in her to refuse him. So she finally sighed and knelt down. "Alright, wake up, adventure." Bypassing the hand he was holding out, she slid under the railing to drop from there.

He smirked as he followed her down. "Usually _you're_ the one talking _me_ into stuff like this, you know."

"Back when you were trying to get me not to stow away on your scouting tours, yeah. Nowadays, it's 50/50." She then dropped from the railing to the catwalk with the catlike agility afforded by her cybernetics. It was just narrow enough to accommodate a keeper, but that was enough for Garrus to carefully jump down beside her. Once they were both there, she took a moment to look around and see if it was worth the effort.

It was. All around them, the Presidium lake glistened in Widow's light, the soft sound of water rushing just barely audible as it ebbed and flowed against the edges of the ring. Not quite like sitting at the edge of an actual lake, like she so enjoyed doing with her sister on Mindoir, but still beautiful. Out here, even the crowds of the station seemed distant and separate, though they were less than 50 feet away. In terms of views she'd been shown by the Vakarian family, it was a very close second to the falls Solana had shared with her.

Terra sighed in wonder as she sat down at the edge of the catwalk. "This is amazing."

Garrus smiled as he sat down with her. "I've always wanted to see the parts of the Presidium we weren't allowed in. I'd say this is worth the trouble."

She had to agree. She even leaned over just enough to sift her fingers through the water and feel the cool, relaxing glide of the luminous fluid around her flesh. She hadn't had a chance to enjoy such simple pleasures in…well, before she died. She was quick to push that thought aside, deciding she needed a bit more. Or a lot more. So much more that she outright sat back to take her boots off.

He started looking at her in bewilderment the second she leaned back and started fiddling with her shoes. "What are you doing?"

She ignored the question, setting her boots aside just behind her and then sitting so that her feet hung off the edge of the catwalk and dipped into the water.

He barely restrained himself from laughing as she sighed almost serenely. "Well, I guess that's one way to enjoy it."

"Oh, believe me, if I had any reason to think you could swim, I would be diving in right now."

He didn't give some witty retort. He just watched her. Seeing her now, glowing in the reflection of the waters, was like discovering all over again how beautiful she was to him. The soft brown waves of her hair, the gleam of her bright blue eyes, the subtle awe with which she constantly observed her environment—everything about her and everything she did was another confirmation of what he knew. He knew it, but she…she was…

No. He had been putting it off or getting interrupted too much lately. It was long past time he told her.

He took a deep breath to steel his resolve. Then he turned to her and took her hand before it could reach for the water again. "Terra…there's something I have to tell you."

She looked at him curiously.

That one look made his heart pound and his pulse quicken, made it harder to breathe. Once he said this, there was no taking it back. But the fact that she affected him so easily, that he was even considering what he was about to say, cemented it in his mind that it must be true. If it was, she deserved to know. So he anchored himself on the thought of how he felt about her, what it would mean for them to embrace this, and with a smile, he confessed it at long last: "…you're my mate."

She froze in shock so suddenly and completely that she lost her balance on the edge of the catwalk and started to slip off into the water. He caught her quickly, holding her tight to him before she could fall. The warmth that cascaded out of him and into her before the water could make her shiver, the feeling of his arms around her, the look in his eyes as those words hung between them—there was no denying what he'd said or how she felt about it. He had to mean it if he had hesitated so much to say it only to admit it with such conviction. He _meant _it. "You…you really…you mean…_I'm_…your…"

He smiled. It wasn't often she was rendered speechless but it was even rarer for her to fumble with her words like this. "Yeah."

She wasn't sure whether to laugh, cry, or kiss him. This was _huge_. He was saying _she_ was his _mate_. As in "I'll never love anyone the way I love you," destined for each other, "only have eyes for you" MATE. That wasn't something you casually stumbled into. It was something you _knew_. If he knew it, if he believed it was her…

Oh.

Oh, wait.

Mates to turians were a step up from the human stage of boyfriend/girlfriend. The only step that was higher was actual bonding, which was no different from marriage. Mates were the step at which permanence started to be a consideration. There had never been a doubt in her mind that what they had was forever, but now that she thought about it… They were still a human and a turian. They couldn't be together without restrictions. They couldn't eat the same food. Spirits, they couldn't even have _kids_. If she accepted him as a mate, she was taking that away from him. She loved him too much to do that.

The more she let those thoughts close in on her, though, the more she was pulling away, drawing him to take notice that something was wrong. "Terra?"

She couldn't look at him. She'd break between the want and the need.

He didn't know how to take that. He'd assumed she'd be delighted to hear this. Now she was turning away? "Terra, talk to me. What's wrong?"

She still couldn't bear to look at him, but she couldn't deny him the answer he deserved. Even if he didn't want to hear it any more than she wanted to say it. "Garrus, there's a reason no other turians have claimed a human as their mate."

Slowly, he realized what she meant. "Terra, no, don't think like that—"

Now she looked at him, so he could see the certainty in her eyes, though she regretted it when meeting his eyes with these thoughts hanging over her started drawing the tears. "I couldn't live with myself if I knew I was depriving you of what you could've had—"

"I don't want any of it if it means not having you." His talons reached up to stroke her hair, comfortingly, longingly. "It's you I want, Terra. It's always been you. It could never be anyone else. Whatever you think we'd be missing, we'll find a way through it together."

Every word was exactly what she wanted to hear. Even coming from Garrus, she didn't trust that. "Garrus, I don't think—"

"No. _Don't_ think. Feel it."

She couldn't help a small smirk at the way he so expertly returned the advice she had given him all those years ago (was it really 15 years now?). She also couldn't deny that, when she set her worries aside and listened to her heart, it was calling out for him with every beat. And she knew it always would. No one else could ever be anything to her like he had been. What he was to her had grown beyond words. But there was one word she knew that went a fair way towards describing it: "…you're my mate, too."

He hadn't realized how desperately he needed to hear her say that until he felt every fiber of his being rejoice at the sound of it. He responded the only way he could, grabbing hold of her completely and kissing her.

She fell into him, letting her tears and fears dissolve. As they sat here with their arms around each other and kissed each other breathless, she felt like none of them mattered. She felt like all she needed and would ever need was him. Her _mate_. She felt elation blossoming inside her at the thought of it, at how easily she accepted it. He was hers now, unequivocally. And she was his in return.

He forgot all about their surroundings as his mind filled with her taste, her scent, the feeling of her pressed against him. His talons gently began to trace the curve of her spine, gaining confidence as she shivered with enticement until his hand came to rest possessively around her waist. She responded in kind, her hand drifting from his shoulder down his arm to his wrist. At first, it was a silent approval of his touch. Then it was a way for her to break the contact so she could take hold of his hand, five fingers entwining perfectly around three talons.

They separated briefly to catch their breath, instead losing themselves in each other's eyes. They really were the same sapphire color, as if they were marked for each other from the very beginning. He smiled at the thought, the talons not entangled with her fingers reaching up to stroke her hair again. She smiled back, taking a brief moment to savor the sensation before leaning back in to kiss him again. He found himself lying down so that she was on top of him as they kissed, their entwined hands falling from the catwalk to the water.

She didn't know what it was about this embrace that made her think it—the feeling of their hands intertwined halfway under the water, the way his hand in her hair drew her closer, the tingling and warmth from her scalp down to her bare and still wet toes, the pounding of his heart against hers, the passionate kiss itself, or all of the above—but she wished time would stop here. She wished she could live the rest of her life in his arms, no Reapers, no Collectors, no Cerberus. It wasn't that simple, though. Time was passing by with every beat of their stolen hearts. She was just going to have to cherish it while she could.

He certainly did. He had never thought he would derive such pleasure from belonging to someone, but "pleasure" was too feeble a word to describe what he felt from losing himself in this moment with Terra Shepard. Every second was a memory he would treasure to the end of his days, a flood of ecstasy and desire and belonging. All this just from kissing her. She must really mean something to him. And she did.

She was his mate, after all. His human. Just as he was her turian.

Even when they finally separated, they stayed close, her lying down beside him and still not letting go of his hand. They watched the sky above for all of 20 seconds before getting lost in each other's eyes one more time, devoting their attention solely to each other yet again.

She sighed contentedly. "I want to stay here."

He smiled. "We can come back. Or when the Reapers are out of the picture, we can find a place by the water on Palaven."

She could already picture that, wiling away the hours for countless days simply lying beside her turian and listening to the waves. She wanted to capture that moment, so she could look forward to it until the day came that she could live it. She wanted to capture _this_ moment, to always look back on how he made her feel.

Even if she knew she would always remember it.

They stayed there for over an hour before they finally checked the time and figured it was time to head back to the ship. It wasn't as easy to get back up from the catwalk as it was to get down, but they managed all the same. It seemed strange to simply be going back to the ship as if everything was perfectly normal, as if they hadn't just embraced as mates for the first time, but they managed that as well. Terra went back to checking on preparations for the big mission (not suicide mission, she wasn't letting that happen), and Garrus went back to working on upgrades for the batteries. If the crew noticed them looking at each other a certain way before heading to separate decks, no one said anything.

Garrus did find it awfully hard to concentrate on the equipment now. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw hers looking back at him, felt her fingers tight between his talons and her kiss on his plates. He smirked to think that, if they kept going on the ship as well as they did off of it, the air in the battery would soon enough be thick with her scent all the time. And he wouldn't mind.

It was only when he was preparing to turn in and he tried to call her that he started to worry something was wrong. She didn't answer. He thought maybe she was working or something and tried again a minute later. Still no response. After a third attempt, he grew genuinely concerned and headed up to deck 1. It occurred to him in the elevator that it would've been simpler to ask EDI, but he felt better checking on her himself anyway. He didn't truly calm down until he stepped into her cabin and saw her peacefully asleep on top of the bed. He smiled at the sight. He noticed that she didn't seem to be wrestling with any nightmares even though he hadn't managed to get a call in before she drifted off. He wondered if that had anything to do with their "date."

It did. All he had to do was step over to the bed to see that. She had fallen asleep with her sketchbook laid out beside her, open to a perfect drawing of the two of them embracing in the reservoir. The details indicated it must have taken all night to recreate—which he couldn't help but notice that his were much more clearly defined than hers—and each stroke rang with the emotion of the moment. It wasn't the same as reliving it, but it drew out the memory with such refinement that it had the same effect nonetheless.

After carefully setting aside the sketchbook on her bedside table, he turned to gently raise the sheets over her. She had earned a sound rest and he was intent to make sure she got it. Once he had done so, he took a moment to appreciate the sight of her sleeping form and, with a smile, kissed her. Without waking, she smiled back. He was hesitant to walk away after that, but he left her to her rest. He'd see her in the morning.

His mate. His human.

The love of his life.


	48. Regrets

Chapter 48: Regrets

We cannot change the past  
We cannot change our regrets  
But we can change the future  
And change ourselves for the best

Their day out on the Citadel had been wonderful, sure, but when Terra woke up the next morning and the first words she heard from Garrus were, to paraphrase, "Sorry I missed your last two birthdays, I got you a Thanix cannon to make up for it," it was pretty much official.

Best boyfriend ever.

Knowing what they were up against, it was a huge reassurance to have some real firepower of their own. And with Garrus keeping the software at full optimization like he had for the Mako, it was guaranteed to be effective, even against the Collectors' ship when next they came across it. She was going to have to thank Mordin for helping him obtain it and get it installed.

She wound up having EDI check on the other upgrades for her so she could sit in the battery with her sketchbook and watch Garrus scroll through the algorithms. There was something about being close to your mate that stoked the fires of inspiration.

Unfortunately for Garrus, that went both ways, and inspiration was not the same as concentration. "Terra, as much as I like having you in here with me, I am still trying to work here."

She smirked as she put the sketchbook down. "Oh, I'm sorry, honey, am I distracting you?"

He shook his head, keeping his eyes on the console. "A little."

She stepped lithely over to him, her fingers drifting alluringly along his arm as she leaned closer until her nose rubbed against his ear. "What about now?"

He had to take his hands off the console before he hit something he wasn't supposed to. Just her scent filling the air was enough to undo him without her voice and her touch compounding the effects. Suddenly, the numbers were the last thing on his mind and all he wanted was to touch her in return. So before he even consciously decided to move, his talons were in her hair again. "You're insufferable."

She smiled as she turned to press herself against him. "You're hard to stay away from."

He smiled back as he found himself once again lost in her eyes. "Can't say I mind that part."

She laughed briefly before leaning in to kiss him. She'd never been happier than when she was in his arms, falling into him, certain of how much he loved her—

_"Shepard," EDI suddenly came over the PA, "Thane is asking to speak with you."_

Terra reluctantly pulled away from her mate with a sigh. "Right. Tell him I'm on my way." She gave Garrus an apologetic look.

He simply nuzzled softly against her. "Go on. I'm not going anywhere."

She smiled gratefully, kissing his scars as gently as she could before turning to leave the room.

He took a moment to himself before getting back to work, still too caught up in the way she made him feel.

Terra was also still thinking of him as she made her way across the deck, but she managed to push it to the back of her mind to give her attention to being Commander Shepard for a moment. Thane was one of her squad-mates who was easiest to talk to, but it was likely he needed the commander right now if he was requesting EDI ask for her. As she stepped into the life support deck and accommodated to the drier air (it was sort of like the Palaven atmosphere, so it did give an echo of the feeling of going home), though, the assassin stayed silent, even though he obviously heard her come in. "Thane? EDI said you needed to talk."

Thane sighed. "Yes. But now that you're here, it seems…difficult to talk about."

Terra knew enough to be concerned. He had explained about the disease that was killing him—Kepral's Syndrome. "Are you feeling sick? I could get the doctor?"

"No. Though I suppose that is part of it. My mortality has me…dwelling on things." He stood up, walking over to where his weapons were arranged. "I had a family once. I still have a son. His name is Kolyat. I checked to see where he is and…he has discovered where I've been and what I've done. He became disconnected and took a job as a hit-man."

She could understand the assassin's distress, but… "'Disconnected'?"

"Yes. Body and soul exist in unity in a whole being. When the body is ill or injured or the soul is weak or troubled, the being is disconnected, no longer whole."

Oh. She could understand that, too. "And your son?"

"He's on the Citadel."

It was a good thing they hadn't actually left the Citadel yet, then. "Get ready then. We can catch him if we move now."

Thane seemed more relieved already, as if he had full confidence she could and would handle this. "Thank you, Shepard."

In ten minutes, Terra, Garrus, and Thane were on their way to the C-Sec outpost by the docks. The man in charge there, Captain Bailey, was happy to help track his men's reports for signs of a drell, finding that one had been seen talking to a former duct rat, Mouse. It didn't take much to track down Mouse and get him to tell them who had hired Kolyat for the contract. Where it did take some effort was in convincing the crook in question to tell them who the target was—Terra finally had to pull her Spectre status to get him to cooperate. The target was Joram Tallid, a turian in the 800 blocks. Now they just had to shadow him and they'd find Kolyat.

"What's the plan?" Garrus asked as they prepared to get in a transport.

"Perhaps it would be best if the commander and I go alone," Thane suggested, "The less of there are, the less likely it will be for Kolyat or Tallid to spot us."

"That's if things go according to plan," Terra retorted, "We need backup. He doesn't have to move in with us, but I feel a lot better knowing he's there."

Garrus silently acknowledged that he appreciated that. He didn't like the thought of letting her go in without him.

Thane either agreed with Terra's reasoning or understood the reasons behind it. "Very well. But we must be swift."

They headed in as swiftly as they could, finding the targeted turian campaigning in the blocks. They still, unfortunately, needed to split up from there—Garrus scouting ahead, Terra following on the keeper walkways, and Thane creeping through the shadows he thrived in. The irony was not lost on Terra that this was the second day in a row she'd had to sneak onto a keeper walk, though the motivation in this instance was more serious and less enjoyable than yesterday's. Lucky for her, Tallid had a krogan bodyguard that impossible to miss, so he wasn't exactly hard to keep up with. Thane kept in contact over the COMMs, Garrus keeping track of their progress from the area outside Tallid's apartment. While Garrus was keeping an eye out for Kolyat, Thane and Terra were both noticing Tallid slowly growing more agitated, like he knew someone was after him. Terra figured she had to move faster, letting Thane finish trailing the target so she could move ahead to—

"Hey!" Naturally, the door she opened had a maintenance worker behind it. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

There were a number of ways she could handle this. Yet somehow she settled on "What am I doing here? What are _you_ doing here?"

The confused worker blinked at her. "What?"

"Do you have any idea how dangerous it is here?"

"Dangerous?"

"Get out of here now! Before it blows!"

"'Blows'?! What—?!"

"RUN!"

"OK!" The poor guy promptly raced out.

Leaving Terra standing there, laughing. "Oh, I can't believe that worked." With that obstacle taken care of, she headed through to the area Garrus was waiting in.

Just in time to see Kolyat make his move. The young drell had a gun up and aimed at Tallid before Terra or Garrus could step in. Garrus caught sight of him first and, since the kid was by no means a target to them, did the logical thing and sabotaged his gun. When Terra then ran in and called out in warning, Kolyat's shots not only missed but didn't even go off, giving Tallid time to retreat into his apartment. The downside was that this also gave the krogan time to arm his weapon, but by then, Kolyat had reloaded. The krogan recoiled from one shot just long enough for Kolyat to chase after his target. So Terra and Thane regrouped with Garrus at the entrance and followed. Kolyat wasn't exactly happy to see his father. C-Sec showed up about the same time they did, but Kolyat was determined, holding Tallid at gunpoint the entire time.

So Terra fired her own gun, hitting a lamp behind them. No damage done and Kolyat flinched long enough for her to rush in and pull Tallid out. Kolyat wasn't exactly happy about that either. She wasn't letting that stand. She knew from experience that nothing was worth losing family. "Your father doesn't have much time left, Kolyat. He's trying to make things right."

Kolyat scoffed. "So what? You just came so you could die in peace?"

Thane carefully drew closer. "I came to grant you peace." He hesitated to say the rest, but he knew it needed to be said. So he did. "You're angry I wasn't there when your mother died."

"You weren't there when she was alive! Why should you be there when she died?!"

Thane turned away, regretting the words that came next. "…your mother…they killed her to get to me. It was my fault."

Kolyat clearly hadn't been expecting that. "…what?"

"When her body was given to the deep, I went to find them. The triggermen, the ringleaders. I hurt them, eventually killed them. When I went back to see you, you were…older."

Kolyat shook his head. "And I guess it's just too bad for me you waited so long."

Thane didn't bother hiding the sorrow within anymore. "…Kolyat, I've taken many bad things out of the world…but you are the only good thing I've added to it."

Watching the scene got to Terra, so she was quite thankful to Captain Bailey for offering Thane and Kolyat a room to themselves to work this out. From the way Garrus was looking at her as they left the building, he knew how much seeing a family torn like this would affect her. When no one was looking, he took her hand and clung closer to her, more certain than ever that they had to make sure his mother survived.

Thane and Kolyat were talking for nearly an hour. Terra would have been happy to spend that time with Garrus, but they were still at a C-Sec outpost and there would be time for the two of them to be alone later, so she instead spent that time persuading Captain Bailey to keep Kolyat's punishment simple and let Thane go unquestioned. When Thane finally came out, Terra briefly checked in on him, receiving a vague answer about how they would have to keep talking to see how it went. After that, she figured it was best they leave the Citadel. But while she was talking to Thane, Garrus disappeared around the corner.

"Garrus?" She followed him, wondering what the problem could be. She found him disquietedly watching a news report.

_"…named Lantar Sidonis turned himself in to C-Sec for the murders of 10 people on Omega. C-Sec is unsure how to handle the case as Omega is outside their jurisdiction and has no law system of its own to extradite him to…"_

…oh. Terra took Garrus' hand, moving closer to him. She didn't know how to comfort him over this or even if he needed comforting, but she was there. Sometimes that was enough.

He didn't say anything. He just held onto her hand like an anchor.

Terra and Garrus stayed together in silence for several minutes before she finally drew him away to head back to the ship and get the space they needed. Thane was waiting for them at the transport to the docks, somehow inferring that no words were necessary and remaining silent for the entire ride back to the ship. It was only as they entered the airlock that conversation continued.

"Are you boys feeling better now so we can get off this station?" Terra prodded.

Garrus couldn't help but smirk. "I'll be fine, Tera."

"Yes, I am ready for whatever comes next," Thane said, "And I appreciate your assistance…_siha_."

Terra looked at him. "Uh, I think my translator just glitched. What did you call me?"

"_Siha_. I will tell you later."

Terra answered with a curious glance before turning to open the doors. She stepped back onto the ship first. Thane was behind her.

Until Garrus held his arm out to block the assassin's path. He didn't know what Thane's word meant any more than Terra did, but he knew enough to know what it was supposed to imply. So when Terra was out of earshot, Garrus sealed the airlock and turned to confront Thane directly. "What was that?"

Thane cocked his head at the turian. "I'm sorry?"

"Most people don't suddenly give their commander a pet-name just for doing them a favor. Are you moving in on my girl?"

Thane merely glanced at the door she had just walked through. "…I will admit I have a great admiration for her. But no. I know her heart already belongs to someone else."

Garrus was amazed he took that answer so well. He couldn't exactly blame the drell for "admiring" Terra since she was the type of person most people couldn't help but love (which he clearly knew better than anyone). He still felt like he should've been upset that Thane might have acted on those feelings if Kasumi hadn't announced to the whole squad that she was taken, but he knew better. Thane could read people, and the wording he'd chosen was very specific.

Thane had only needed to watch them interact for five seconds to know that they were mates.

While part of him was wondering if Samara also picked up on it or if anyone else on the ship knew enough about turians to know what that meant, Garrus kept his eyes on the assassin (or was that former assassin now?). "I hope that means we can count on you."

Thane nodded. "Of course."

Once he had that affirmation, Garrus opened the airlock and reentered the ship. Terra was at the galaxy map by the time she noticed they hadn't followed her on, tossing inquisitive looks their way as they both made their way to elevator before giving Joker the go-ahead to leave the nebula. She didn't know what had just gone on and wasn't sure she wanted to know, she just felt a lot better once they had put some distance between them and the station. She did love the Citadel, but they'd dealt with enough there in the past two days to last them a while.

As she headed back up to her cabin, though, she remembered her outing with Garrus to the Presidium and corrected that thought. They'd been through a lot, but they'd also made some good memories to balance it out.

Terra spent about two hours in her cabin, bouncing between going over data on the Collectors to start strategizing and working in her sketchbook, before she finally went down to the tech lab to see how the rest of the upgrades were going. Mordin had just finished assuring her that the armor upgrades were nearly finished and that word from the salarians researching the Corpalis cure was promising so far when EDI informed her that Jack was asking to speak with her. That was the last thing she was expecting to hear, so she acted on it quickly. She came out of the cargo hold below engineering five minutes later with a new course to plot.

Jack had been going through Cerberus' files on her and had managed to find the location of the facility that had kidnapped and experimented on her. She, quite rightly and quite badly, wanted it destroyed. Terra thought there was a certain kind of irony to demolishing a Cerberus facility so soon after turning her back on the Illusive Man, so she prioritized it and took them straight to the Petra Nebula. It was unfortunately on the other side of the galaxy from the Citadel, leading to a journey that took the better part of a day, but Jack didn't seem to mind the wait. When the time finally came that they were approaching Pragia, she was already in the armory, strapping on her shotgun and warming up her biotics. Terra was right behind her, gearing up and heading down to the shuttle bay to head out. But she stopped just as quickly when she noticed something wrong.

Garrus wasn't there. He was always the first one at the ready the moment they found out they had a mission. He never let her go anywhere without him. It'd become an unspoken law on the ship that when Shepard went somewhere, Garrus was always the first one to follow. Several crewmen (including Terra herself) had made jokes about him sleeping with his rifle just in case something came up in the middle of the night, and a few, Joker especially, went so far as to equate them (behind their backs, obviously) to Mary and her little lamb. Why wouldn't he be here now?

Terra finally told Jack to give her a minute and headed up to the battery to check for herself.

She found him sitting on a crate by the console, the most appropriate word for his current position being "sulking." He barely acknowledged her entry.

She quickly sat down next to him. "What's wrong?"

He was reluctant to answer, but he didn't see the point in not telling her. "I called Sol again. …things aren't going well."

She was already worried. Now she felt like the room was colder. "What happened? Is your mom OK?"

Just the question made him feel worse. "…no. She's hitting the final stages, the neurodegeneration started."

Terra suddenly felt like the cold was burrowing deep inside her and wouldn't come back out. Not only had her chances of survival just fallen drastically, but now it would start affecting her mind. Terra had never actually witnessed Corpalis before. Was it like a turian version of Alzheimer's, tearing apart the memory? Would the woman who'd been like a second mother to her even recognize her when she finally went home? What if it was too late for those treatments now? What if everything they'd been trying to help was for nothing?

No. Thoughts like that were clearly what was hurting Garrus so badly. She couldn't succumb to them, too. She had to be there for him, help him see the hope he was losing. Everything they had been doing would only be for nothing if they stopped, because it could always ensure no one else went through this. And Garrus' mother specifically was tough enough to make it through this. "Garrus, listen to me. It's not over until we give up."

He had been trying to tell himself that, but it meant a lot more coming from her. "That's not all of it, though. I warned them about the Reapers and Dad's been trying to convince the Primarch to take precautions. The hierarchy bolstered defenses and communications, but they're not really doing anything about it. They're not even listening to _him_!"

That she could relate to. She had hoped the turians would understand the gravity of the situation and how badly they needed to prepare, and it was nice to hear that Castis had taken the threat seriously and gone this far, but no one wanted to believe in something as terrible and immense as the Reapers. She would be just as skeptical herself if she hadn't carried the visions and spoken to Sovereign and Vigil. "Well, we're just gonna have to hope they see reason before it's too late. There's not much else we can do."

On this matter, Garrus had been hoping for more from her than blind optimism. He was right back to sulking.

Terra had never known Garrus to sulk, though, and she didn't like it. Her turian was confident, brave, and strong. He couldn't let all this get to him. Fortunately for her, she knew a way to help him with that. "Would going down and shooting something help you feel better?"

He couldn't help but smirk. "Maybe a little."

She held out her hand.

He took it.

So they went down to the shuttle bay together and joined Jack on the way to Pragia. It was simple at first. Mordin had even managed to finish upgrading their armor, shotguns, and pistols before they headed out, promising the rest of their guns and their medi-gel supply would be next; the armor upgrades proved immediately useful in catching some shots that could've done some real damage, and Terra certainly got a kick out of testing her shotgun's newly enhanced stopping power on the varren that came out to tussle with them.

With every step through the facility, though, things got more complicated. First, there were all the things Jack remembered of the experiments here and all the signs remaining of what happened that made Terra's blood boil and solidified her decision to put Cerberus next on her list after the Collectors. Then, there were all the indications that this facility had actually gone rogue from Cerberus and even that some of the experiments had been for the sake of keeping Jack alive; Terra wasn't certain if it would be better were all this true or if she was right to suspect that it had been planted in the time after she told off the Illusive Man since he would obviously know Jack would bring them here eventually. And let's not forget that the facility was full of Blood Pack vorcha and krogan. The mercs couldn't hold up very well against Terra and Garrus working together, never mind Jack's constant shockwaves on top of that, but their very presence was highly suspect. Eventually, they found out the whole thing was masterminded by the only other survivor of the facility's experiments, who was actually trying to restart the place.

Suffice to say, Jack wasn't quite the wordsmith Terra was.

Terra was quick to talk Jack down and chase the guy off. Jack took a few minutes to look around the place and remember the bad old days before decisively planting a bomb in the middle of the room that had been her childhood cell and leading them back to the shuttle. It was a narrower escape from the blast zone than they would've liked, but it was over.

Well, it was over until Jack got into a heated argument with Miranda almost immediately after getting back on the ship. Miranda didn't seem to mind them destroying a Cerberus facility, but she was still clinging to the ideals and the evidence they'd found that the facility was not under the Illusive Man's oversight. Jack didn't appreciate that viewpoint.

Terra knew better than to take sides on this one. "We've got enough to worry about without you two tearing each other apart. Save if for the Collectors."

Jack shrugged. "Sure. I'll do my part. I'd hate to see her die before I get a chance to filet her myself!" With that, she stormed off to presumably brood in the cargo hold.

Miranda simply retook her place in the XO office and began putting the situation behind her with relative ease. "Thanks, Shepard. It's good you came along when you did."

Terra nodded. "I'm here for my crew. You know that."

Miranda smiled. "I do."

When Terra came out of the office and turned the corner, Garrus was waiting for her, clearly having heard the whole thing. "You know, you don't have to solve _every_ problem in the galaxy."

She smirked. "No, but someone has to, so it's worth a try."

He smirked back. "That's what I love about you."

She smiled, leaning into him. "I'd tell what I love about you, but we'd be here all night."

He laid his head on hers, not even caring if the crew might be watching. "I wouldn't mind."

"…I know."


	49. Home Away From Home

I should probably warn everyone that I've fallen a bit behind on writing this story and my family is just now coming for Christmas visits, so updates will be really slow this week. Not to worry, I will be picking back up in the new year and, hopefully, the fact this chapter is a bit longer will make up for it. See you all in 2020. :)

Chapter 49: Home Away From Home

Home is not just where we come from  
Home is a people, a place, a feeling  
It changes as we change  
But it always waits for us

Terra had known something was bothering Tali. She couldn't see her quarian friend's expression behind the mask, but even quarians radiated their feelings to those around them who were sympathetic enough to notice, especially distress. She finally realized she had to intervene when she checked in on Mordin's progress with the upgrades and found out that Tali had been uncharacteristically quiet and reserved while handing over her specs for the shield improvements. So she headed straight down to the engineering deck. Seeing Tali at the console slow and barely focused was the last straw.

"Tali, are you OK?" Terra asked.

Tali jumped. "Shepard! Oh. I didn't hear you come in." Distracted, too? This wasn't like her at all.

Terra quickly took her friend's side. "Tali, talk to me. What's going on?"

Tali seemed to realize there was no point in sidestepping the question and sighed. "I received word from the fleet. The Admiralty Board has accused me of treason. …I'm scared, Shepard."

Terra was so stunned to hear this that it took her a moment to collate a reply. "That…that's insane! No one who knows you could _ever_ believe you would betray your people, Tali!"

Tali shrugged. "I don't know. They don't lay these kind of charges unless the evidence seems absolute. But thanks. I appreciate your faith in me."

Terra couldn't believe this. Tali was more devoted to the Migrant Fleet than Terra was to Palaven, which was really saying something. How could there be evidence against her over something this severe? …and what did that mean for her? "What happens when a quarian's accused of treason?"

"There's a hearing with members of the Admiralty Board presiding. It's being held on my birth-ship, the _Rayya_."

"Why didn't you say something earlier? We're going with you!"

"I know, but—wait, what?"

"Give us the fleet's coordinates. We'll go right now."

"I…I was going to book passage on another ship. I thought—"

Terra laid a supportive hand on Tali's shoulder. "I'm not just your commander, Tali. I'm your friend. That means I'm here for you when you need me. Especially now."

Terra didn't need to see behind Tali's mask to know a smile when she saw one. "Thank you, Shepard."

Terra immediately forwarded the fleet's coordinates to Joker and told him to move as fast as the ship could carry them. Garrus was already quick to gear up, but when he heard Tali was in trouble, he moved just a bit faster, something Terra agreed with. Tali still seemed nervous and afraid, but with Terra and Garrus behind her promising to take care of this, she also seemed a lot more hopeful. All three of them headed up to the cockpit once they were prepared and waited through the last relay jump.

Terra had never actually seen the Migrant Fleet before. It was quite a sight to behold. The largest fleet in the galaxy floating peacefully by empty stars in perfect formation, all wonderfully crafted in different ways, some older than others, some even built by other races and repurposed. The quarians were living on those ships, wandering the galaxy. If they weren't also trapped in that existence, Terra would envy them.

"This is Tali'Zorah vas Neema nar Rayya," Tali spoke into the COMM once Joker established contact, "requesting permission to dock with the _Rayya_."

_"Our sensors have your ship flagged as Cerberus," the response came, "Verify."_

Terra fought the urge to growl in response. She'd have to correct that flag while they were there.

Tali seemed almost wistful as she looked out the viewport at her birth-ship and spoke to it through the COMM: "'After time adrift among open stars, along tides of light and through shoals of dust, I will return to where I began.'"

Terra found herself smiling softly as the quarians accepted their docking request and prepared to take them aboard. The quarians were a rather poetic people, truly a culture after her own heart. She could tell she would've loved their art and writings if only she'd had a chance to see it. Yet another reason to mourn the loss of Rannoch.

The captain of the Rayya, Kar'Danna, met them at the airlock. "Captain Shepard, it's a pleasure. Although I wish we were meeting under better circumstances."

Terra wished that, too. "Tali's done a lot for me. I'm hoping to return the favor."

"Good. As captain of the vessel she serves on, your voice carries weight." He turned to Tali. "I'm supposed to remain impartial, but I'm here if you need to talk. They're charging you with bringing active geth aboard the fleet as part of some secret project!"

Tali reacted now. "What?! That's insane! I never sent active geth back, only parts and pieces!"

Terra turned to give her a stunned look through her helmet. "You sent geth material back to the Migrant Fleet?!"

"Yes, my father asked me to. …if I sent back something that was only powered down and not permanently deactivated…no. No, I was careful. I checked _everything_."

Terra could believe it. Tali was the most skilled engineer she'd ever met. She would never mishandle her equipment, especially if it came from a geth. "So what happens now?"

"Technically," Kar'Danna answered, "I'm supposed to place Tali'Zorah under arrest pending the hearing. So, Tali…you're confined to this ship until the trial is over."

Tali breathed easier when she heard that. "Thank you, captain."

"The hearing is being held in the garden plaza. Good luck."

Tali led Terra around a corner toward the plaza in question. This was the ship she had grown up in, the walls she had walked for 20 years of her life. She hid it well, but it was clear simply from how easily she still navigated the place that she had missed it.

When they approached the plaza, they found an older quarian woman waiting there. "Tali'Zorah vas Normandy. I'm glad you've arrived safely. I could delay them only so long."

Tali smiled and hugged the older woman. "Auntie Raan!" After this brief greeting (which Terra couldn't help but notice the other quarian was less enthusiastic about), Tali turned to Terra and Garrus. "This is Admiral Shala'Raan vas Tonbay, a friend of my father." She froze when she realized… "Wait. Raan, you…you called me _vas Normandy_."

Raan nodded somberly. "I did. The admirals moved to have you tried under that name, given your departure from the _Neema_."

Terra wasn't sure how to take that. "I'm guessing being associated with a human ship is a bad sign?"

Tali shook her head. "They've stripped me of my ship name. That's as good as declaring me exiled already!"

"It's not over, Tali," Raan assured her, "You still have friends here, people who remember you as Tali'Zorah vas Neema, whatever we must call you legally."

Terra wasn't sure how to take _that_ either. Whatever was happening, the odds weren't looking to be in Tali's favor. "We should move fast. Does Tali have a defense councilor, someone who speaks for her side?"

Raan nodded. "Indeed she does…Captain Shepard. An accused is always represented by his or her ship's captain."

…oh no.

Tali turned to Terra hesitantly. "So…er…_you_ would actually speak in my defense."

Terra could handle pressure, but this was asking a lot. One of her best friends was putting her fate in her hands. In combat situations, she could handle that. But _this_? Though, as usual, one look to Garrus put her worries to rest. She couldn't interpret as much of his expression when he had his helmet on, but she only needed to see him nodding to know he was telling her she could do this. He had faith in her. She had, just the other day, successfully arbitrated a "catfight" between _Jack and Miranda_, of all people, so she definitely had the persuasive skills for it. When she turned back to Tali, she saw that her quarian friend was clearly still nervous but also willing to comply with this complication. That proved just as effective as Garrus' faith in bolstering her resolve. "I…I'm honored. I'll do my best."

"Our rules are simple," Raan informed her, "We have no tricks to worry about. Present the truth as best you can. That will have to be enough." With that said, she took her place presiding over the Admiralty Board's panel, letting Tali and Terra follow her into the plaza and take their place at the stand while Garrus stood at the back and watched the crowd. "This meeting of the Conclave is called to order. Blessed are the ancestors that kept us alive, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this season. Keelah se'lai." The crowd echoed the Khelish call. "We are here so that Tali'Zorah vas Normandy may defend herself against the charge of treason."

"Objection!" one of the admirals spoke up, "A human has no business being involved in such sensitive military matters!"

"Then you should not have declared Tali crew of the Normandy, Admiral Koris. By right as her captain, Shepard _must_ stay."

Koris shook his head. "Objection withdrawn."

Raan turned to Terra. "Captain Shepard, your crewman, Tali'Zorah, stands accused of treason. Will you speak for her?"

This much Terra was certain of, taking the stand in a heartbeat. "I will. But in her heart, she remains Tali'Zorah vas Neema, a proud member of the Migrant Fleet. It's a shame her captain has been forbidden to stand with her."

Koris instantly started stumbling to compile an argument. "No one has been forbidden from anything—"

"Lie to them in you must, Zaal'Koris," the admiral standing beside him, Han'Gerrel, quickly stepped in, "but don't lie to me and expect me to stay silent. The human is right!"

"Admirals!" Raan quickly cut back in, "Please! Shepard's willingness to stand for Tali is appreciated. How does the accused plead?"

"Tali would never endanger the fleet," Terra instantly asserted, "She pleads not guilty."

Tali nodded, stepping up beside Terra. "I sent back pieces of geth subjects. My father ordered me to do so. But I would never send active materials. Everything I sent was disabled and harmless."

"Then explain," Koris snapped, "how geth seized the lab-ship where your father was working."

As the crowd descended into whispers, Tali descended into shock. "What…what are you talking about? What happened?!"

"As far as we can tell, Tali," Gerrel answered, "the geth have killed everyone on the _Alarei_…your father included."

"_What_?! Oh, Keelah…"

Terra's heart broke at the sound of Tali's failing. She wanted to comfort her friend, to scream at the admirals for having the gall to spring that on her in the middle of a trial, but it was in Tali's best interest for her to keep up her commander side for just a minute longer. "I appreciate the need for this trial, admirals, but the safety of the Migrant Fleet has to come first."

Tali clearly agreed with that statement. "Shepard, we have to retake the _Alarei_."

"The best course of action would be to simply destroy the ship," Koris said, "But if you're looking for an honorable death instead of exile—"

"I'm looking for my _father_, you _bosh'tet_!"

Terra struggled not to laugh at that one.

"You intend to retake the _Alarei_?" Raan asked, "This is a dangerous notion."

"Yes," Terra nodded, "It's for the good of the flotilla…and Tali deserves to find her father."

"We'll have a shuttle prepared to take you across, then," Gerrel said, "And if you are killed on this noble venture, Tali, we'll see to it your name is cleared of all charges."

"We'll discuss that later," Koris sneered.

"Very well," Raan said, "Tali'Zorah, you are free to go. This trial will continue upon your return…or upon determination that you have been killed in action."

Terra quickly pulled Tali aside. "Are you OK?"

"No," Tali admitted quietly, "But…but they don't have proof my father is gone. Maybe…I don't know. We won't know until we get there."

Garrus met up with them at the end of the plaza. "Don't worry, Tali. We're with you."

Tali sighed. "And there's no other two people I'd rather have with me. Let's go."

The shuttle ride was brief, but it was long enough for Terra to attempt to console Tali. This whole situation was unfair to her, and Terra was going to do everything in her power to make sure it didn't stay that way. Garrus made a few attempts of his own at cheering her up before finally outright asking what was going on with the admirals. Tali didn't know everything about the politics behind the scenes, but she enough to let them know that this matter was clearly more touchy than most because of the geth involvement—Han'Gerrel and Rael'Zorah, Tali's father, had been pushing hard for some time for the fleet to prepare to take back Rannoch while Koris had been trying to play pacifist and make peace with the geth. Terra hadn't been expecting _any_ quarian would have an opinion like that, but knowing one of the _admirals_ thought so was astonishing. She had never known the geth to be reasonable, but she had also never known anyone to try to reason with them, and if there was a chance… Maybe it was asking for too much, but EDI had proven trustworthy so far and she was a synthetic, so there was no reason to discount the possibility just yet. If the quarians didn't at least try…well, the alternative wouldn't exactly be pretty. For either side.

The very first room they walked in on the _Alarei _was full of geth. Not exactly a good sign in terms of finding survivors, but Terra wasn't giving up hope on that count until they had cleared the whole ship. Tali hadn't been on this ship, at least not near as much as the _Rayya_, but she knew quarian design enough to help them navigate, leading them through labs, bunks, and kitchens and once again proving invaluable in terms of handling geth offensives. The tight quarters played against them in some cases, yet these geth fell just the same as all the others they'd faced. It wasn't long before they reached a lab with a console they could access.

"Anything on there that could clear your name?" Terra asked as Tali scrolled through it.

Tali sighed. "Doubtful. This is mostly results data—effects of different disruptive hacking techniques on geth platforms. It doesn't say so…but they may have been activating the geth deliberately. If they were, then Father was doing something _terrible_." She looked at the console almost accusatorially. "What was all this, Father? You promised to build me a house on the home-world. Was this going to bring us back home?!"

Terra had to say something now. "Tali, I understand wanting your home-world back, but any war you fight with the geth is not going to end well."

"I know. But you don't understand what it's like. When you lost your world, you got Palaven. When we lost our world, we got a fleet that's one hull breech away from extinction!"

"It's still a home, Tali. I don't want to see you lose it for fighting a war you could've avoided."

"Could we have avoided it? This is no life worth abandoning a fight for, forced to wear these suits in our homes or else we might die. A single kiss could put me in the hospital! Every time you touch a flower with bare fingers, inhale its fragrance without air filters, you doing something I _can't_!"

Terra had always thought it must be hard on Tali to be so confined. She hadn't realized just how hard it was, just how much her friend was missing. She wanted to give Tali that much, but how could she? "Haven't you at least considered colonizing somewhere else?"

"Of course we have. But we'd have enough difficulty acclimating to our native environment. Adjusting for exposure to a foreign colony would be even harder. It's the difference between 60 years and 600. For anyone alive now to watch a sunset without a mask, we have to retake Rannoch."

Terra couldn't argue this any further. She couldn't imagine her beloved horizons feeling so detached. She was living proof that it was legitimately possible to adapt to a foreign atmosphere, but she hadn't been living off of an artificial one her whole life. If it was truly that difficult for them, there was nothing they could do. Nothing except risk going home. She was going to have to be there when they did.

Tali finally sighed, seeing as Terra did that there was no point in continuing the conversation. "At the very least, we can take back one ship. Come on."

So they headed into the next room, overlooking a stairwell that led into a hall more geth immediately started pouring out of. This position was perfect for Terra and Garrus to snipe them down while Tali disabled a few and put her combat drone to use (which she had adorably named Chatika vas Paus, much to Terra's amusement). Once the way was clear, Terra led them to the hallway…to find a quarian corpse on the floor. Just the sight of it was disheartening.

But it was outright heartbreaking when Tali recognized it. "Father!" She quickly rushed over, kneeling down beside the body to check the suit. "No…no, no, you always had a plan. Masked life-signs or an onboard medical stasis program maybe. You…you wouldn't…you wouldn't just die like this…"

Terra had been in this position. She had responded the same way Tali was now. She had only recovered because she'd had Garrus to pull her out. So she paid it forward and pulled Tali out now. Wordlessly, she knelt down beside Tali and hugged her.

Tali accepted the embrace, still crying as she clung to Terra. "…I…I'm sorry, I—"

"Don't be. I know."

Tali suddenly realized just how true a friend Terra was. Much more than a commander. "…he…he would've known I was coming. Maybe he left a message." She quickly connected her omni-tool to her father's, finding a message as she suspected.

_"Tali, if you're listening, then I am dead. The geth have gone active, I don't have much time. You have to disable the terminal at the heart of the ship to stop them from creating new neural links. Make sure Han'Gerrl and Daro'Xen see the data. They must—" Suddenly, the sounds of geth attacking came through and the signal cut out._

Tali shook her head. "Thanks, Dad."

Garrus related to this issue. He could hear the bitterness in her voice. "Tali, the geth cut him off. You don't know how that message was going to end."

Tali sighed. "No. I do." Before Terra or Garrus could respond, she stood up and started leading the way to the lab containing the terminal.

Just their luck, there was a prime in that room. Tali and Garrus were able to strip its shields so Terra could wear down its armor, but it hit too hard for them to keep in position to lay down suppressing fire. Every time they ducked down, they gave it a chance to build its defenses back up. Tali was able to distract it with Chatika, momentarily at least, so Terra could finish cutting through its armor. That left it exposed for Tali to hack into it and slow it down, all the opening Garrus needed to take it out. The few geth left active as backup were easy targets for Terra, and the battle was over.

Tali reluctantly approached the terminal and disabled the geth signal running through it. "There. That should shut down any we missed." She then searched the console for any remaining data. "There's security footage still accessible. It'll tell us what happened here…what Father did."

Terra, merely out of sympathy for Tali, shared her friend's reluctance to open the file, but it had to be done. So she did it.

_"…more if Tali'Zorah would send more intact material."_

_"No! I promised to build my daughter a house on the home-world. I don't want her exposed to any politic blowback. Leave Tali out of this! Assemble new geth with what we have, bypass security protocols, if need be."_

Tali reacted in the only way she could, turning away from them.

Garrus tried to step in and reassure her. "He was just trying to keep his promise."

"I never wanted this," Tali shook her head, "Keelah, I never wanted this. This was all his fault. I wanted to believe it wasn't, but when this comes up at the trial…" She turned to Terra. "We can't use this."

"What? Tali, without this evidence, you're looking at _exile_!"

"You think I don't know that?! You think I want to live knowing I can never see the fleet again? But I can't go into that room and say that my father was the worst war criminal in our people's history! I can't let them posthumously exile him, strip his name from the record of every ship he served on, erase all the good he did for the fleet! I can't do it!"

Terra was used to playing mediator, but this was too much. She couldn't let Tali lose her home so soon after losing her father. She couldn't let one of her best friends go through what she went through on Mindoir. But if the alternative was losing her trust… "We're not going to decide anything here." She took the data file. "Let's head back before they assume we're dead."

As if she'd predicted it, the admirals were recommencing the trial when they returned, Koris asserting that there was no reason to believe Tali or her crewmates survived. Terra was a bit upset they were giving up after only a couple hours, but it just got her to move faster. They came back into the plaza just before Raan could begrudgingly accept a judgment.

"Sorry we're late," Tali prodded.

Terra smirked behind her helmet. She was rubbing off on her. "Tali retook the _Alarei_. I hope that proves her loyalty."

"Her loyalty was never in question," Koris said, "Only her judgment."

"Perhaps Tali'Zorah can offer something to incur more trust in her judgment," Raan suggested, "Did you find anything on the _Alarei_ to prove her innocence?"

Terra knew this was it. Tali was still pleading with her quietly even as she stepped up to the stand. But as she looked at the admirals, she couldn't help but feel outraged at how they had treated her friend. In fact, the more she thought about it… She nearly smiled maliciously at what she realized she had to do. "Tali shouldn't need evidence. She's proven herself more than enough already."

"I fail to see what relevance—" Koris started.

"Why don't we just admit that you're not even interested in whether she's guilty or not? This trial is all about the geth!"

"The geth have nothing to do with—"

"You want people to sympathize them! Your fellow admirals wanna go to war! _None of you care about Tali_! Well, newsflash, she's got more experience with the geth than anyone here! You should be _listening to her_, not PUTTING HER ON TRIAL! Tali saved the Citadel and showed the galaxy the value of the quarian people! I can't think of any stronger evidence than that!"

Garrus smirked from his position at the back of the crowd. _That's my girl._

Raan finally asked for a judgment. The admirals took only a moment to consider before reaching a decision. Unanimously. "Tali'Zorah, in light of your recent achievements, we do not find sufficient evidence to convict. You are cleared of all charges. Keelah se'lai."

When it was over, Tali followed Terra off to the side where Garrus was waiting. "I've never had anyone speak like that on my behalf before. Thank you for being there for my father and me, even when…" She turned to her commander with a grateful smile even her mask couldn't hide. "_Thank you_…Terra."

Terra smiled. No one on the crew but Garrus ever used her first name. It seemed right for Tali to use it, too. "We can still go back and get you exiled, if you want."

Tali laughed. "Thanks, but I'm fine with things like this. It's fun watching you shout."

Terra laughed with her. "Come on, then. Let's go back to our ship, Tali'Zorah _vas Normandy_." It seemed even more right to call her that. The ship was home with her there.

Tali seemed to agree. "Right behind you…captain."

Tali was different when they went back to the ship. Not at heart so much as in the way she carried herself, the way she viewed the vessel. The fact that Joker turned to ask after how she was doing the second they came back on board seemed to prove that the crew was a family of sorts for her now. She did go back to work in quiet seclusion (aside from a few interactions with Daniels and Donnelly), but this time was out of mourning for her father and adjusting to how her life had seemed to so drastically change in a few hours. That much was still worrying enough for Terra to go down and check on her. She was quick to assure her commander that she was OK—along with an apology for getting her so deeply involved in quarian politics—and that she just needed some time to think things over. She also pointed out that her father would have appreciated that she chose to mourn him by blowing up a bunch of geth. Terra exchanged a laugh with her over this remark and, just like that, they had switched from commander and engineer to friends again. It was so easy for them now.

Terra, against her better judgment, wound up asking if Tali had any other family now that her father was gone. The sad truth was that her mother had fallen to an illness that had swept the fleet when she was a teenager and quarians had strict rules about single births in families so long as their resources were limited.

Tali was an orphan now. "The closest thing I have to more family is…" She trailed off, seeming to rethink her words. "…well, Raan, I guess."

Terra, though, knew enough about reading people to catch what she didn't say. "…Tali…"

Tali, in turn, knew enough about Terra to catch that she'd heard it. "I know. I, uh…should probably get back to tinkering before Mordin asks after my shielding recommendations again. Thanks for checking in on me."

As Terra went up to deck 1, she thought over the events of the day. Tali had lost her mother to illness so long ago and not had the best relationship with her father to lean on or any siblings to confide in. It was a sad reminder of what she and Garrus were trying to avoid, though at least they would have each other and Solana. If they survived this and got to see Solana again. Their whole family situation right now was a mess she didn't know if she could fix.

And Solana was having to face it alone.

…oh…this was a really bad idea.

Terra finally seemed to realize she couldn't let this sit any longer. It wasn't going to be much longer anyway, so she might as well get it over with and warn her. So she headed to her terminal and wrote down what she needed to say before she talk herself out of it. In ten minutes, she'd written it all down and sent it before she could hesitate long enough to think it over or change her mind.

From: Terra Shepard  
To: Solana Vakarian  
First of all, this isn't a hack. It's really me. I'm alive. I can prove it: we snuck out after dark to see the Karahven Falls at sunrise, we just barely made it home before your mom could realize we were gone, I bandaged the scrape you got on your carapace while we were climbing. I know neither of us ever told anyone about that, not even Garrus. You know it, too. So you know this is real. And I really need to talk to you.  
To put it simply, I did, in fact, die two years ago. However, because I am now the champion against the Reapers, Cerberus saw fit to invest in bringing me back. And before you get all worked up about it, yes, I know they're terrorists and, yes, I did promptly kick them to the curb with the intention of hunting them down next. I'm sorry I didn't contact you before now. Don't be mad Garrus didn't tell you either, though, because I asked him not to. I heard you had enough going on out there. …and I may be risking my life again, in which case I didn't wanna get your hopes up if things went south. Speaking of which, he doesn't know I'm sending you this against my better judgment after I told him that, so I'd appreciate it if you could not mention it to him.  
Don't worry about me and Garrus. Even I'm not so unlucky as to die so soon after coming back, and I would do so on purpose before letting anything happen to your brother. I'll make sure we both come by to see you when this is over. And I'm sorry about your mom. I'm trying to move some mountains to help her, but there are some things I just can't change. No matter how it goes down, though, I'm here for you, Sol. And I know that goes both ways. We're still sisters.  
By the way, I don't know if Garrus mentioned we're mates now. Just thought I'd let you know.

Later, she regretted sending the message, but she still smiled to think of it. Garrus, Tali, and Solana. Three people she could always count on. It was nice to have that. Especially now.


	50. Predators

I really did not expect "slower" to mean "not at all." I'm so sorry. Don't worry. As promised, I am back, and I have started attempting to pick up the pace with the next few chapters, so I should be back to my semi-regular posts. Here is the first, approaching the end of the ME2 section of the story; I hope you enjoy and wish a happy new year/decade to everyone.

Chapter 50: Predators

Some hunt for blood  
Some hunt for a thrill  
Some hunt for love  
Some hunt for the kill

Solana wrote her back the next morning—the expected shocked reaction, brief tirade, and eventual overwhelming joy. She had clearly needed that dash of hope, to know her favorite human was alive and kicking again. Terra could already hear her snapping at both her and Garrus for not telling her sooner when they met up again, before she inevitably started hugging her to death. The thought made her smile. Just as much as it made her miss her sister.

After archiving the message, Terra went down to deck 3 to start making the rounds. It occurred to her she probably should've started on deck 2 or 4 since she would inexorably wind up spending several hours in the battery with Garrus, but she was just as likely to wind up spending hours talking to Tali or with Mordin and the upgrade progress reports, so she followed through. The first stop was with Samara, who wasn't exactly the most talkative of her squad-mates; their lengthiest conversation so far had been discussing the justicars, which was certainly very interesting to hear, especially against the backdrop of the stars rolling past the window Samara near constantly meditated in front of. Samara may not exactly have been open, but she was the kind of contemplative an artist like Terra could relate to, something she took comfort in.

When she entered the observation deck today, though, something about the justicar seemed different. It was hard to tell with her, but she seemed disquieted. "Samara? Is something going on?"

Samara quickly stopped her meditations. "I should have known you would recognize it." She stood, looking out at the galaxy beyond the viewing glass. "The fugitive I was hunting when you found me. Using the information you retrieved, I have located her. She has been going by the name Morinth. She is hiding on Omega."

Terra stepped up. It was clear this was important to the justicar. "How dangerous is she?"

"She is an Ardat-Yakshi. It is an ancient word from a dead asari dialect. It means 'Demon of the Night Winds.' But that is superstition. She is merely a dangerous criminal who kills without mercy. She has a rare genetic disorder. When she mates with you, there is no gentle melding of nervous systems; she burns yours out, hemorrhages your brain. I have been chasing her for 400 years while she has hunted and killed."

This all sounded like the plot of a horror vid about a succubus. Terra wasn't about to sit by while that ran free. "We'll head for Omega and take care of it."

Samara seemed to breathe easier with this assurance. "Thank you."

Terra nodded, turning to leave the room and tell Joker to set a course for Omega.

"One more thing," Samara spoke up before Terra could walk away, "This creature we are hunting, this…monster…" She sighed dejectedly before confessing the painful truth: "She is my daughter."

Terra had been stunned silent before. Rarely, but it had happened. This went far beyond that. She turned back to look at Samara, struggling to find the words to console her though she knew no such words could possibly exist. "Samara, that's…I can't imagine—"

Samara shrunk back. "Do not pity me, Shepard. Merely understand. This is why I became a justicar. Help me find my long-lost daughter…and kill her."

Terra couldn't believe she was agreeing to this, but it was clear to her as much as it was to Samara that this had to be done. So she had EDI tell Joker to set a course for Omega. They weren't very far, which meant it was only a few hours' ride, so that cut short her plans to talk with the rest of the crew. She instead went up to briefly check with Mordin about the upgrades—of which he had managed to complete the plating, rifles, and medi-gel, leaving just the shields and SMGs to improve—and then down to the battery to talk to Garrus.

Halfway to the battery, she froze. Oh, no. They were going to _Omega_. She couldn't take him back there, but there was no way he was letting her go without him. She sighed, realizing she was going to have to either sneak away or convince him to stay behind. Neither was going to go over well. No point in delaying it, though, since they were already approaching the nebula, so she headed in.

And, surprisingly, Garrus didn't immediately turn away from the console to face her.

Concerned, she stepped up. "Garrus?"

He almost jumped as he turned to her.

She gave him a curious look. "You really didn't know I was here?"

He smirked. "Honestly, I usually smell you before I hear you and…you've been down here so much the room is saturated already."

She couldn't help but smile. She knew how the scent of a mate could be a comfort or a thrill for a turian. She knew him well enough to know that the ship was a sort of home for them but the battery and her cabin would truly feel like where they belonged—together. That thought, though, reminded her why she was here, bringing the smile to disappear as quickly as it came. "Uh, I actually came down to warn you that Samara had a problem she needs us to solve."

He shrugged. "I wish I could say I'm surprised, but since everyone else had a turn…"

She laughed. He had a point. "Yeah, well, this one is a bit heavier. That fugitive she was hunting when we found her? She tracked her. 'Her' being a serial killer she's been tracking for 400 years…that happens to be her daughter."

Garrus didn't know what to say to that. "…oh."

"I'll spare you the details on the 'how.'"

"Right. So we're heading there now?"

"…if by 'there,' you mean Omega."

He tensed up for a few seconds before turning back to the console to set aside the algorithms he'd been poring over.

"What are you doing?" she quickly asked.

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm heading to the armory."

She responded to that by blocking his path to the door. "Garrus, I'm not taking you."

He gave her a sharp look. "You're talking about hunting down a _serial killer_ on _Omega_. I'm going with you!"

"No, you're not!" she snapped back, "This is still the station chock full of mercenaries who want you dead. Last I checked, they might think Archangel's taken care of, but there is still a bounty on his head!"

"That doesn't mean I can't help you."

"No, it just means you can't leave the ship to do so."

"Terra—!"

She finally grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him to meet her eyes as she put her foot down. "You want to come so you can look out for me. I get it. So you can let _me_ look out for _you_ for once. I couldn't live with myself if something happened to you."

He saw her point. He found himself smirking as he gestured to his scars. "Something already did. Even I'm not so unlucky it'd happen twice."

She smirked back. "Yeah, and I'm not so unlucky as to die so soon after coming back, but you're still following me around."

He scoffed, shaking his head. "We're mated, Terra. It's part of the deal."

"Exactly. So I'll keep you on speed-dial on the COMMs, I'll stick close to Samara—who you know as well as I do is too formidable as to let anything threaten either of us—and you will stay here and keep the ship safe for me." Just to drive the point home, she confessed the real reason she wanted him to stay behind: "Besides, you just managed to put everything that went down there behind you. The last thing you need is to go back."

It wasn't until she said it that he saw why she was so worried. Now he did, knowing how much it hurt her to see how lost he had been without her, he knew better than to keep arguing. "…OK. So long as you realize I'm not sleeping until you get back."

Having been there herself, she laid a comforting hand on his scars. "Did I ever tell I love you?"

He smiled. "You might've mentioned it, yeah."

She kissed him quick. "I'll be back before you know it." With that said, she left the battery to start gearing up.

Garrus watched her go. "You'd better."

Once Terra was ready to head out, she went up to the bridge to talk to Joker until they docked. It was a preoccupied conversation on both sides, since he was focused on steering the ship and she wound up working on her sketchbook the whole time, but it was still nice to talk to the pilot. She could certainly count on him for a laugh when things were looking bleak. Samara came up to meet her at the airlock just as they began their approach and, upon finding her drawing and writing, asked after her artistic side, prompting her to explain how she had grown up as a painter and a poet. Samara seemed to smile contemplatively as she casually glanced at the sketchbook before Joker's announcement that they were docking reminded Terra to put it away and ready for trouble.

Trouble was the one thing they were most likely to find on Omega, after all.

_"The daily death count on Omega," EDI informed them as they left the dock, "is too high for me to pinpoint an Ardat-Yakshi's location. However, given their reputation among asari, it is likely Aria T'Loak has tracked her movement."_

"Thank you," Samara answered, following Terra to Afterlife to start their investigation.

Aria was remarkably helpful, telling them exactly who she believed the most recent casualty was—a young human girl in the tenements outside the Gozu district. Terra led Samara straight to the apartment and the grieving mother therein. Both of them took only a few moments to ask questions before meeting the unavoidable result of simply attempting to comfort the poor woman, if by no other means than promising to avenge her daughter's death. Samara continued to do so quietly while Terra carefully examined the girl's room for clues, finding some art pieces she couldn't help but admire the craftsmanship of and a diary that told the story of how the girl stumbled upon the Ardat-Yakshi that drew her in and proved to be her end.

About the time Terra finished investigating, Samara stepped in. "This is exactly the kind of prey Morinth prefers—artists, slightly isolated from their peers. She impresses with sophistication and sex appeal. Then she strikes. The hunt interests her as much as the kill."

"Sounds like just the kind of person we can't let get away."

"Correct. And this is the closest I have ever been. But we cannot storm her den. She will have 100 escape routes planned."

Terra nodded. "So we have to lure her out."

"Exactly. Shepard, you read my mind." Samara started thinking over how to approach this. "She seems to favor the VIP area of Afterlife as her hunting grounds. She will flee if she sees me, but you can go as long as you are alone and unarmed."

Terra didn't like the sound of this. "You're saying _I'm_ _bait_?"

"I regret putting you in danger, but yes. You are an artist—on the battlefield as well as with words and paints—you have the vital spark that attracts her. She will be unable to resist you."

She _really_ didn't like the sound of this.

Oh, boy, Garrus was going to HATE the sound of this. Maybe, for more reasons than she had anticipated, it was a good thing she'd made him stay on the ship.

Still, this seemed to be the only option left to them, so Terra sighed and conceded. "Alright. We'll head back to the ship to drop off my gear and start hunting." _And hope I can sneak on and off before anyone notices what I'm about to do._

Somehow, she did, in fact, manage that, returning to Samara in five minutes flat in civvies so they could start planning on the way to the club. Once they were in, it was just a matter of Terra playing her hand properly to draw the serial killer's interest. One Samara was quick to inform her would do terrible things to her and, if she wasn't careful, would make her want it.

Terra sighed. "No pressure, then."

"Shepard," Samara spoke up before she could step in, "thank you. This is not a burden I share easily and you are the only soul I could think of sharing it with."

Terra was honored to hear that. She had no small amount of respect for the justicar.

"Go. Quickly. I will remain here."

So Terra moved in. She had never been fond of clubs. At least this one wasn't terribly crowded and the music was bearable. Still, this wasn't exactly the type of place she found to be as fun alone. She didn't come here for fun, though. She was on a mission. Not a mission she liked, but a mission nonetheless. And she was going to carry it out.

Terra figured the best way to go about this was to show both sides of herself, though she couldn't draw herself to do so quite so much as she would for Garrus. She'd take a few minutes to have some fun (or attempt to) and stir up some trouble, then she'd take a few minutes to find a corner and work in her sketchbook (there was no landscape to capture and she didn't want to draw her feelings in case she was already being watched, so she attempted to capture visually what the music incited emotionally and went from there). She knew it was working when she felt shivers down her spine and eyes following her. She hid it as best she could, but she felt uneasy even if it meant she was on the right track.

As proven when an asari leaning against a wall finally pulled her aside. "My name is Morinth. I've been watching you. You're just about the most interesting person in this place. I've got a booth over here in the shadows. Why don't you join me?"

So it was a matter of talking to her. That much Terra could manage. She kept her sketchbook safely stowed away for now, but she let her poetic side out as she played on what she had learned of Morinth's interests from her previous victim's diary. Samara was right, Morinth couldn't resist her. That was definitely not a good thing. At not until Morinth suggested they leave the club and head to her apartment for some "time alone." Terra had done her part. Now she just had to follow Morinth to her den and hope that Samara was following close behind.

With every step, Terra was starting to see what Samara had been trying to warn her about. Half of her was deeply unsettled by this where the other half was drawn in. As if her rational side was reminding her what Morinth really was while the asari seemed to twist the rest of her. But she anchored herself by clutching her necklace and thinking of Garrus. Her heart belonged to him completely, so she couldn't be persuaded to anyone else. That also helped her keep faking her interest by showing how she felt about her mate and letting Morinth think it was for her.

The strategy worked up until they were actually in Morinth's apartment. Then there was nothing Terra could do but stall for time. She pulled this off easily for about two minutes before Morinth made a move of her own.

"Independence over submission," Morinth said as she came to sit with Terra, "I think we share that, you and I."

Terra had been playing along so far, but this was where she drew the line. "We've both killed many times, but that's where the similarities end."

Morinth flinched. "Why do you say I've killed?" She may not have had an answer, but she knew enough to clamp down on Terra's wrist before she could make good on the underlying threat in her words. "Maybe we should stop playing games."

Terra agreed with that sentiment, but she was a bit underequipped for this. She knew better than to try fighting off the grip of a biotic that could snap her wrist in half, she didn't have any biotics of her own or tech tricks to lean on, and her guns were currently lying in the armory on the _Normandy_. All she could do was hold her ground and wait for Samara.

So she had no way of avoiding it when Morinth used her greatest weapon, her eyes turning entirely black as she latched onto Terra's mind. "Look into my eyes and tell me you want me. Tell me you'd kill for me. Anything I want."

It was like something was pulling on her mind, a constant barrage of whispers and beguilement. It was difficult to think straight at all, let alone resist. But this was nothing compared to the Prothean Cipher and ensuing visions. As Liara had said, she was remarkably strong-willed, forged in the fires of her childhood home. And she still had incentive to fight it waiting for her on her ship. So she pushed back, using how it caught Morinth off-guard to twist the hold on her wrist and push the Ardat-Yakshi away. "I'm not the starry-eyed victim you're looking for."

Morinth stumbled back in shock. "But…who are you?" When Terra answered by staring her down, she slowly put the pieces together. "Oh. Oh, I see. _Where is she_?"

"MORINTH!" That was when Samara stormed in, setting off a biotic attack that threw Morinth into the window and held her there.

Morinth glared in response. "Mother."

"Do not call me that!"

"I can't choose to stop being your daughter, _Mother_."

"You made your choice long ago."

Morinth curled up enough to lash out, throwing the justicar's hold off of her so she could fight back. "What choice?!" She lifted a nearby chair, tossing it at her mother, who just barely dodged it. "My only crime was being born with the gifts _you_ gave me!"

"ENOUGH, Morinth!" Samara snapped, throwing Morinth again.

Once both of them were on their feet, Morinth locked Samara in a biotic duel that neither of them could overpower. "I am the genetic destiny of the asari! But they are not ready to reveal this. So I must die."

"You are a disease to be purged! Nothing more!"

Morinth turned to look at Terra. "I'm just as powerful as she is! Let me join you!"

Samara immediately responded. "I am already sworn to you, Shepard! Let us finish this!"

Was Terra tempted by the Ardat-Yakshi's offer, even if just for a moment?

No. She was not. She knew exactly who she was dealing with, and she was _not_ letting her _anywhere _near her crew. So even though she had been keeping her distance from the biotic energy so far, she braved it just long enough to get behind Morinth and immobilize her. "End of the line, Morinth."

Morinth sneered at her. "And they call _me_ a monster."

Samara moved quickly, one last biotic strike throwing Morinth to the floor. Before her target could recover, she knelt down… "Find peace in the embrace of the goddess." …and broke her neck.

Terra winced, not having it in her to watch the fatal blow. When it was over, she turned her attention to the justicar, waiting for the brokenness she was sure would follow.

Samara stood, not facing Terra. "I am ready to leave this place."

Terra looked at Samara in a sympathy she could barely describe. She knew what it was like to lose family, but she could not imagine what it was like to do the deed herself. She had lost her parents, her siblings, but this…

What Morinth had become didn't change what she was. No parent should ever have to bury their child.

She knew better than to ask if the justicar was OK or even going to be. She simply agreed and led them out.

It was only when they were back on the ship and preparing to leave Omega that Terra's own reaction to what had happened sunk in. Morinth had twisted her emotions, preyed on her feelings and her creativity, _touched her mind_. It was hard to come back from, like she'd been violated on the deepest level. …like she had gone against her mate by letting it happen. She finally realized this was one feeling she couldn't work off on her own and asked EDI to call Garrus up.

The second Garrus had stepped in the door to her cabin, Terra grabbed him and started kissing him. He didn't question this at first, kissing her back and keeping her close. It was only when he started struggling to breathe that he pushed her away and realized how sudden and needful the act had been. "Terra, is something wrong?"

She didn't want to talk about it. But it was Garrus asking, so she did. She sat him down and told him everything that had happened that day. She couldn't bear to look at him and see how he was reacting when she finished.

If she had, she would've seen he was distraught _for_ her far more than he was _about_ her. He knew she would never give in that easily, so he couldn't see why she might be worried this could be seen as a betrayal. But the way she said it all, how far it had gone before Samara had arrived, and the fact she was actually _shivering_ as she remembered it…it was too much for him. "Terra…" He took her hand, pressing it between both of his to try to calm the shaking. "…you did what you had to do. It's over. I'm right here."

She clung close to him. "I should've brought you. I almost…"

"You didn't. You're too strong for that." He nuzzled against her. "It's one thing I admire most about you."

She had to smile at that.

"Feeling better now?"

"I don't know yet. What else you got?"

He just barely stopped from laughing. "Your perseverance. Your compassion. Your curiosity. The way you see the beauty and poetry and music in everything and everyone." He smiled as she turned her eyes to his. "How you found a way to love me as much as I love you."

She smiled much more earnestly now. "What can I say? You saved me from being a damsel in distress."

Now that she was sounding more like herself, he did laugh.

That was what she needed to hear. "I still feel like someone's been poking through my brain, but…" She sighed. "Could you stay with me?"

He didn't care if she meant for the next five minutes or for the rest of the day or even through the night. He agreed.

So she spent the next six hours in his arms, safe in the knowledge that she was known and loved and protected. All by someone who would never let her falter.

Her Archangel.


	51. Friend or Foe

**Review reply: lordheistra222, I believe something you're really looking forward to is happening in the chapter after this one. ;)**

Chapter 51: Friend or Foe

In trials, we learn our true alignment  
And how true our allies are  
Those who are truest are there irrevocably  
No matter the past or how far

The day finally came that there was no more putting it off. The upgrades were complete. The squad was all in with no more lingering issues. No side missions or extra leads came along for them to worry about. All that was left was the IFF. So Terra reluctantly set the course for the dead Reaper and they were on their way.

As soon as they entered the system, she had cause for concern. The _Normandy_ was a very smooth ride even without the kinetic stabilizers activated, so when the ship started shaking while the squad was gearing up, she was worried enough to run to the cockpit and ask Joker what was going on.

He had only just finished informing her that there were solar winds in excess of what the ship could easily shrug off when he noticed something. "There's another ship docked on the Reaper. No IFF, but the ladar paints its silhouette as geth."

Terra groaned, shaking her head at how nothing was ever simple. "Guess we know why the Cerberus team stopped reporting."

Almost immediately after she said so, the shaking stopped.

"…what just happened?"

"The Reaper's mass effect fields are still active," Joker explained, "We just passed inside their envelope." He scoffed. "Eye of the hurricane, right?"

Terra couldn't help but think it was ideal meteorologically but furthest from it in every other way. After all, the eye was supposed to be relatively safe and there was no way a dead Reaper was, especially if there were geth aboard.

Garrus and Zaeed stayed close as they docked with the Reaper. Fortunately, there was functioning life support as well, so they didn't need to bring helmets. That, however, didn't change the fact that merely stepping aboard unsettled them all, like the air itself was thick with shadows and every sound was cold and threatening. This ship was millions of years dead, as far as they could tell, but that didn't change what it had been before that. If the mass effect fields and life support were still functioning after so long, what else might it be capable of?

There was no sign of the Cerberus scientists, but there were terminals they had set up littered about the path. What little data was available was very disconcerting even without the added tension of their surroundings. Terra took that as another signal to get what they came for and get out as quickly as possible.

A plan that hit a stumbling block the second they went through the first main door and felt the ship shift.

_"_Normandy_ to shore party," Joker came over the COMM, "Please tell me you still read us."_

"We're here, Joker," Terra answered, "What's going on?"

_"The Reaper just put up kinetic barriers. I don't think we can get through from this side."_

Garrus was instantly as nervous as Terra was. "Uh, of all the things I could be trapped inside of, a Reaper is definitely at the bottom of the list!"

Terra fervently agreed. "We've got a Thanix cannon now. Use it!"

_"Reaper shields can resist fire from several dreadnoughts," EDI responded, "However, kinetic barriers can only be produced by a functioning drive core. If you can locate and disable it, the barriers will come down and allow us to exfiltrate you. Be advised, the core is also maintaining the Reaper's altitude."_

Terra sighed. "So we shut down the core and the Reaper falls into the brown dwarf…"

_"…and everyone dies," Joker said, "Yeah, we got it."_

She smirked. "If there's any pilot in the galaxy who can pull us out in time, it's you."

_"Yeah, yeah, just get a move on before we end up repeating history."_

That was certainly a mission plan. Terra, Garrus, and Zaeed moved a lot faster now, and not just because the ship was so disturbing to be in. This worked well enough moving through the uninhabited walkways. It stopped working so well when a husk suddenly crawled up from under the walkway to jump out at them. All three of them were so caught off-guard that it was a wonder Zaeed managed to let off a concussive shot to throw it back over the edge before more starting coming from the woodwork. The zombie-like creatures were simple enough to handle in small groups, but this was an unceasing torrent that followed them down the walkways. They had just barely managed to clear a path forward when, upon approaching a corner, two husks rounding the bend suddenly dropped dead.

"Sniper!" Zaeed declared.

Terra took cover at the corner and peered around. There was no sign of anyone, but they were clearly a good shot. _Guess we just have to hope they're on our side._ With no other option but to head forward, she readied to fight off the next long wave of husks. This one came with one of those biotic abominations known as a Scion (as well as a few literal Abominations that exploded when they died, an uncalled-for complication) that could throw them and fry their shields even from behind cover with a single shockwave—not that taking cover mattered when the husks were running right for them from all sides. Terra made the logical call of telling Zaeed to lob an inferno grenade into the middle of it, burning the Scion's armor and splashing the flames into the husks surrounding it to clear a path for Terra and Garrus to finish off the rest. It didn't end easily, but at least it ended.

Terra was really aching to get off the ship now. She rushed Garrus and Zaeed through the next door to a more central chamber. When they stepped through, it seemed clear enough. She played it cautious, though, gesturing to Garrus and Zaeed to watch their flanks as she edged forward. Then, suddenly, two husks jumping up behind her dropped dead before she even heard them come at her. Terra quickly turned to check where those shots came from.

On a platform overhead stood a geth. "Shepard-Commander."

Terra couldn't have been more shocked if it had started doing the robot.

The geth simply strode away, out of their line of fire, not even waiting for a response.

"Since when do geth talk?" Zaeed asked.

"Or travel alone," Garrus added, "They're a network intelligence. Tali said a single geth would barely be able to function."

Terra was all for stoking curiosity, but the horror vid groans of more husks emerging from below put a pin in that course of action. "We'll catch up to it. Focus on staying alive."

She didn't need to tell them that. There were too many husks in the chamber for them to focus on anything else. Not to mention more Scions shambling toward them the farther they got. Terra was starting to wish she'd brought Grunt to charge right through them, but Zaeed more than made up for that with the sheer number of inferno grenades he'd brought along with him. Garrus and Terra fell into a rhythm of firing concussive shots to line up shots for the other, Garrus' armor-piercing ammo giving them the power to snipe down three husks in one shot (Terra was definitely asking him to teach her that trick later, maybe even trading her favored incendiary). Between that and Zaeed burning down the Scions, it was an ordeal but not an impossibility to clear the chamber and get to the next passage that led straight to the drive core.

And, as luck would have it, the IFF was exposed on a terminal right next to the door.

Garrus quickly used his tech skills to extract it. "Alright, we got what we came for."

"So the survey team did recover it," Zaeed noted, "But where are they now?"

Terra cast a disheartened glance back at the remains of the husks, remembering how they had passed a chamber lined with the spikes her people knew from Eden Prime, called Dragon's Teeth after the story of Cadmus and his monsters. She'd seen what they did. These creatures hadn't come from nowhere, and they hadn't been on the ship in the Cerberus teams' logs, at least not to this degree. "…I think we can guess." The thought of it made her shudder. Cerberus or not, no one deserved that fate. Garrus and Zaeed, slowly realizing her meaning, wisely kept silent as she turned to the next door and opened it.

The way through was sealed with a sort of barrier that didn't appear to be breakable or vulnerable to hacking. On the other side of it was the drive core chamber, at the end of which stood a terminal at which the geth sniper stood. The geth paused only long enough to shoot down some husks that were shambling toward it before finishing at the terminal. Amazingly, one of the actions it seemed to perform at the controls was to lower the barrier blocking the squad's path. Unfortunately for it, this was followed by another husk emerging from nowhere and attacking it.

Terra wasn't able to intercept the attack (though she wasn't sure what exactly she would've done), but she was able to shoot down the husk as the drive core exposed itself. All three of them immediately started firing at it, but it had a built-in shield that quickly closed around it. The shield seemed to be malfunctioning enough to open back up again at regular intervals, but husks were coming from all sides again to occupy them. This wouldn't be such a problem if they could find a way to bottleneck their assailants, but the room was too open, so all they could do was take up position at the three corners to the back of the room and watch each other's backs, taking shots at the drive core whenever possible. When Garrus informed them that the drive core was nearly disabled, Terra came up with an idea and asked Zaeed to toss her one of his handy inferno grenades. While Garrus and Zaeed covered her, she waited for the drive core shielding to open then tossed the grenade in and shot it. The burst of fire coupled with the force of the shot was enough to destabilize it so that one shot from each of the three of them not only disabled it but also rattled the ship with a small shockwave that chased off the last of the husks.

Once it was clear, though, Terra's attention turned not to the ship's gradual loss of altitude as it began to pick up speed toward the brown dwarf but instead to the geth lying by the terminal. "This thing's still active!"

"We don't have time to worry about it!" Zaeed snapped, nodding to the husks slowly crawling from the descending ship.

"But Tali said no one's ever captured one intact before!"

"Terra, I understand the curiosity and all," Garrus pointed out, "but we are still talking about an active geth!"

Terra could've stood there weighing the pros and cons for hours—how they needed to know more about the synthetics, even if active geth had desecrated the _Alarei_, and the squad if not EDI's cyber-warfare could easily handle it should it get out of hand because it was only one geth—but the rattling under her feet and steadily rising temperature dissuaded her from any consideration at all. "We don't have time to argue about it. Grab it and let's get out of here!"

So she and Garrus carried the deactivated geth through the chamber back to the outside of the ship while Zaeed covered them. Joker opened the airlock, they all jumped back onboard, and they raced out of there. Now that they were out of danger from it, Terra couldn't help but draw a small sense of satisfaction from seeing the remains of the dead Reaper fade into the broken light as they flew away.

Miranda and Jacob immediately got into an argument of their own on what to do with the geth, just like with Grunt's pod. Jacob was adamant they should toss it out the airlock the first chance they got while Miranda attempted to make a case for salvaging the platform. Terra had some thoughts of her own, questions rattling in her mind like marbles with "Why did this one talk to us, help us, possibly save our lives?" at the forefront. She wasn't going to get answers from salvaging it and frying the memory core. So she made the questionable decision to start it up behind a barrier and interrogate it, which Jacob was quick to point out would make Tali freak when she heard.

Terra agreed, so she decidedly avoided the engineering deck before heading straight for the AI core.

EDI was at the ready, keeping a barrier up with her systems prepared to resist any and all hacking attempts. One simple omni-tool command managed to give the platform what it needed to reboot. It stood and faced Terra. It didn't even try to break the barrier. Synthetics didn't show emotions the way organics did, but Terra couldn't help but think the look this geth gave her was curious.

"Can you understand me?" she asked carefully.

"Yes."

"Are you going to attack me?"

"No."

She gave the geth a curious look of her own. "Every other geth I've met has tried to kill me."

"We have never met."

"Not you, other geth."

"We are all geth, and we have not met you."

Now Terra's curiosity was giving way to confusion. "Then how do you know who I am?"

"News reports, insecure broadcasts—all organic data sent out is received. We watch you." The geth's more curious look seemed to give way to a form of reverence, though Terra still wasn't sure if she was reading that properly. "You are Commander Terra Shepard. Orphaned on Mindoir, adopted by turian family Vakarian, hero of Elysium, fought heretics, killed by Collectors, rediscovered on Old Machine."

"'Old Machine'? You mean the Reaper?"

"Reapers—a superstitious title originating with the Protheans. We refer to these entities as the Old Machines."

"And you're saying I fought whom, exactly?"

"Heretics. Geth are attempting to build a future. The heretics asked the Old Machines to give them the future."

It took a moment for her to see what it meant: the geth had been attempting to build a life for themselves on Rannoch, but some of them had branched off to worship the Reapers. "So…_you're_…_not_ allied with the Reapers?"

"No. We were on the Old Machine looking for a way to protect our future."

"And what did you find?"

"A virus being developed by the heretics to persuade true geth to their way of thinking and assisting the Old Machines."

Oh. That would be bad.

"This unit opposes the heretics. We oppose the Old Machines. Shepard-Commander opposes the Old Machines. Shepard-Commander opposes the heretics. Cooperation furthers mutual goals."

Now she was approaching a state of shock. "Are…are you asking to work with us?"

"Yes."

She had changed her mind. _Now_ Tali was going to freak. But this geth had helped them once and had bothered to communicate with them when it knew they would kill it without hesitation. That meant something. Terra had to appreciate that. She also couldn't afford to turn down help, even this kind. So, slightly against her better judgment, she went along with it and signaled EDI to let down the barrier. "So what should we call you?"

The platform simply looked at her, not even moving as its restraints were removed. "Geth."

She blinked. "No, I meant you specifically."

"We are all geth."

She groaned, resorting to being more specific: "What is the individual in front of me called?"

"There is no individual. We are a collective. There are current 1183 programs active on this platform."

_"'My name is Legion," EDI quoted, "for we are many.'"_

Terra shrugged. "Seems appropriate."

The geth took a moment to consider. "Christian Bible, Gospel of Mark, chapter 5, verse 9. We acknowledge this as an appropriate metaphor." So it seemed to accept the title. "We are Legion, a terminal of the geth. We will integrate into Normandy." It spoke the name as if the ship was a living thing rather than a vessel. Terra couldn't help but admire that.

So she held out her hand.

Legion seemed to take a moment to inspect the gesture before accepting it. "We anticipate the exchange of data."

"…right. And that virus you mentioned?"

"It is being held on a heretic station. We have the coordinates."

EDI had said it would take a few hours to fully install the IFF, and they couldn't exactly leave a bunch of Reaper-worshipping geth (sorry, former geth) to add to their ranks, so she didn't mind shifting focus for a while. "Let's go."

Just like when she opened Grunt's pod, Garrus was right outside in the med bay, weapon at the ready and ears on the entire conversation. As she passed him on the way out, he gave her a look as if to say _This is one of the craziest things you've ever done, but I guess I trust you._ Tali learning of the situation was unavoidable once their course was set, though, so Terra had to go explain it to her before they arrived. To say the quarian responded badly would probably be an understatement. It was a good thing Tali trusted Terra and knew better than to yell at her because this allowed her to restrict her reaction to a simple clenching of her fist and a warning—"Don't come crying to me when this comes back to bite us."

To Terra's face, at least. When the commander left the engineering deck, she couldn't help but notice an abnormally large quantities of crashes and Khelish shouting coming from the drive core maintenance console.

The natural endpoint of this reaction was for Tali to approach Garrus in the armory and assert that she was accompanying Terra on this mission and he could stay back and focus on his "calibrations." He naturally retorted that Tali was too close to this one and she should stay back and focus on her "tinkering." Neither of them had ever been so worked up as to belittle each other's work before, so the conversation almost immediately became a heated argument that was occurring dangerously close to the squad's weaponry. Terra finally stormed in and pulled them apart when she went to get her own guns, demanding to know what the problem was.

"Shepard!" Tali snapped, "You can't go along with this! It's a _geth_!"

"Yeah, one that helped us," Terra pointed out, "And we're gonna have a lot more to worry about if we don't move in fast."

"That's why you should take me! I'm better suited to disabling geth than anyone else on this ship!"

"That doesn't mean I can't do it!" Garrus snapped back.

"I didn't say you couldn't! I said you shouldn't!"

"Why not?!"

"Perhaps because you'd be a bit _distracted_?!"

Terra reacted sharply there. That was a very similar jab to the hurtful prod that Ashley had employed on Horizon. Tali hadn't heard it and wouldn't know how it might hurt them both, but that didn't mean it didn't happen. "Tali, that's enough. It's my choice and you don't get to argue about it."

Tali saw Terra's point, suddenly remembering that she was still technically her commander. "Terra, if this thing turns on you—"

"Then I'll need backup. Enough to disable Legion—on the _very unlikely_ chance he does prove inclined to set us up—and still finish the mission. …which is why you're _both_ coming with us."

That shocked them enough that they both cried "What?!" in unison. Terra had been holding the three-person team standard whenever possible since they first started the hunt for Saren. They'd fallen into their rhythms that way, organized maneuvers around it. Even after the restriction of the Mako was gone, they had stuck to it as if it was a military standard they were obliged to uphold. And now she was ordering them to change that?

"I have three good reasons," she explained, "First, we're almost definitely going to be changing the system at the Collector base anyway, so there's no point in calling it a rule. Second, the only advantage to a smaller team on this mission would be in terms of stealthy approaches, which Legion is assuring me will be straightforward enough to begin with simply through its help. And third?" She sighed. "…look, I'm not saying I _don't_ trust Legion, but given it's the first friendly geth we've come across, it wouldn't exactly be smart on my part to trust it completely just yet, so I need some insurance. And you two are the ones I trust most. You work brilliantly together…when you're not at each other's throats. So I want you both behind me here." She smirked to Tali. "Unless you'd prefer to stay behind and help EDI on the cyber-warfare suites."

Tali simply looked at her for a moment before grabbing her shotgun and arming it. "Let's go."

Garrus had no objections either when it came down to it, so they all readied weapons, strapped on their helmets, and headed up to the cockpit as Legion was coming by. The geth only took a moment to regard them curiously and accept some simple introductions before going up to guide Joker on the approach.

Joker shook his head as Legion gave the instruction to activate stealth systems. "You know it's just our heat emissions that are hidden, right? They could look out a window and see us coming."

Legion looked at him. "Windows are structural weaknesses. Geth do not use them. Approach the hull at these coordinates."

As the geth turned to input a few commands to the navigational controls, Joker sat there…mocking it viciously. He only stopped when he looked over his shoulder just enough to see Terra glaring at him.

Five minutes later, they were docked and infiltrating the station. Legion was quick to warn them there was little air or gravity since geth required neither, but they had their helmets on and their armor came with mag-boots, so they were prepared. Terra's bigger concern was that the geth might detect them, but Legion was also quick to inform her that it had managed to overload the intrusion detectors so that no alarms would go past the room they were in.

"Sounds like we're set, then," Garrus nodded.

"Then we've got a mission to finish," Terra agreed, "Let's move."

Suddenly, Legion stopped moving. "Shepard-Commander!" it called to her, stopping her in her tracks, "We have just detected the heretic virus. It is complete and can be used against the true geth at any time. However, we have also determined that the virus can be repurposed. The heretics themselves can be rewritten to accept _our_ truth."

"Uh, Shepard?" Tali instantly stepped up in concern, "I'm all for blowing them up, but if we go along with _this_, Legion's geth will be stronger. What's to stop them from going after us?"

Terra could easily give Tali some poetic argument about the organic-synthetic divide clearly being more grey than they had believed, but the way she saw it, it didn't even matter. "It's not an option. I wouldn't brainwash an organic race to make a choice against their will, and I won't treat the geth any different."

Garrus couldn't help but think that her compassionate, curious, not-quite-pacifist nature was going to get them in serious trouble one day, an opinion Legion surprisingly seemed to share. Still, it was her decision to make and she hadn't steered them wrong so far, so he didn't debate the matter with her when they prepared to move deeper into the station. Legion proved itself useful in hacking defensive systems and guiding them around alarms, even seemed to prove itself trustworthy by watching their backs in the eventual fights against the heretics themselves. As they went, Terra continuously peppered the platform with questions about how the geth functioned and what it was like to be part of a network intelligence and how it would affect the collective to rewrite the heretics on this station. Everything seemed to be going to plan for once, even down to Tali and Garrus looking at Legion in suspicion a lot less.

Until they found a server farm that Legion was able to scan. "Wait. We discover copies of our current patrol routes in these databases. This suggests the heretics have runtimes inside our networks."

Terra gave Legion a curious look. "We wouldn't be here if the heretics wanted to be friends with the geth. Why are you so surprised they would be spying on you?"

"You do not understand. Organics do not know each other's minds. Geth do. We do not distrust each other. We accept each other. The heretics wished to leave the collective. We understood their reasoning and allowed it. How could we have become so different? What did we do wrong?"

Terra had never thought she would wind up feeling sympathy for a geth, but here she was. "It's not your fault, Legion. When they separated, they changed."

"If this is the individuality you value, we question your judgment."

Terra had also never thought she would hear words like that and see where they were coming from. Poetic she could handle, but she rarely waxed philosophical to this degree.

She finally decided it was best to save the conversation for later and led the team through the next door. Legion found a console there that it was able to extract the virus from. The heretics responded with force, but they had the perfect advantage—a sniper's perch over a room that the geth had to carefully cross around a series of turrets Legion could hack while Tali slowly disabled or distracted them. The heretics seemed to keep coming, though Legion was quick to warn them of each approaching wave, and Terra found herself more grateful than she had expected that she had brought both Garrus and Tali along. Even when the heretics began to push harder and made it up to their level, Legion had two more turrets to lean on and Garrus replaced his rifle with an overload attack that stunned them for Tali and Terra to shoot down. With one final shot from Legion at a cloaked hunter, the fight was over.

Legion turned to the terminal. "Data-mine and analysis complete. Shepard-Commander, it is time to choose. Do we rewrite the heretics or destroy them?"

Terra looked at the geth hesitantly. "They're your people, Legion. Why am I choosing?"

"We are conflicted. There is no consensus among our higher order runtimes. 571 favor destruction while 573 favor rewrite."

Terra, for once, found herself falling back on numbers rather than words. She couldn't help but add up Legion's report and wonder why the other 39 of his 1183 programs were abstaining. Even then, her focus fell upon the slight majority that rewrite had taken—after all, two or 200, it was still a majority. "…if…if they're…_rewritten_…the geth will accept them back? …will they even wanna go back?"

"We will accept them into our consensus and learn from their experience of being rewritten. All will be stronger."

Terra only now thought of the geth as different from organics, though not in the way she had mentioned earlier. The geth reasoned differently and needed a push like this to see when a decision was wrong. It wasn't brainwashing to use the virus now. It was undoing what the Reapers had already done by turning them on their own people. "Take them then. Unleash the virus and destroy it."

"Acknowledged." Not seeming to notice the uncertain glances Garrus and Tali were giving to Terra, Legion turned to the console and input the command for the virus. "Releasing virus. Note: remote access via high-gain transmission required."

"That sounds ominous," Garrus said almost nervously.

Tali agreed. "What does it mean?"

"The virus will be sent to heretics in nearby star systems as well," Legion explained, "This station will broadcast a powerful electromagnetic pulse through FTL channels. Alert: this EM pulse will be lethally hazardous to unshielded organic life-forms. Addendum: the interior of this station is not equipped with barriers."

"OH!" Terra groaned, "I really wish you'd mentioned that earlier!" She quickly drew her gun and ran for the door. "Back to the ship! Double-time!"

So they ran for it. Even the geth prime blocking the final door barely slowed them down—Tali and Garrus wore down its shields so Terra could shoot off its armor and Legion took it from there. Once they were back onboard, Terra told Joker to floor it and they raced off, watching from a distance as the station sparked with the effects of the virus and sent out the signal.

"If you'd told me this morning," Garrus remarked as he and Terra put away their helmets and weapons, "that we'd be saving a bunch of geth…"

"It can't hurt to have friends," Terra smirked.

"That much I agree with. But when those friends are geth, it gets a bit…_dicey_."

Terra shook her head. Garrus got her. He'd see it the way she did if she just gave him time. He was already not suggesting Legion itself was an immediate threat and that was a major step. Now if she could just convince Tali—

_"Uh, commander?" Joker spoke up over the PA, "Tali just went to have a 'chat' with Legion. You better get down to the AI core."_

Terra groaned. So much for that plan. "I'm on it." She raced down to deck 3 and past the med bay to the core.

Tali and Legion were indeed locked in a standoff, Legion apparently having scanned Tali's omni-tool for data on her father's experiments with the intention of sending it back to the other geth. Tali was livid, to say the least.

Terra wasn't about to let this go on. "Tali, your father was performing brutal experiments. If the subjects had been human, I would've told the Alliance about it."

Tali shuddered to think of it that way. "I…I know. But if the geth found out—"

"They'd attack. Which would cause a war that would leave both sides vulnerable when the Reapers show up. Is that what you want, Legion?"

Legion withdrew. "We did not intend to cause hostilities."

Terra shook her head. "Sooner or later, you both are gonna have to stop fighting this war."

Legion seemed to ponder her words for a moment. "To facilitate unit cohesion, we will not transmit data regarding creator plans."

Tali stood down then. "…thank you, Legion. I…understand your intentions." One look at Terra seemed to sway her to go one step further. "What if I gave you some non-classified data to send?"

If geth could smile, Legion would've done so then. "We would be grateful."

Terra certainly did.

When she came out of the med bay, Garrus looked at her in shock. "Did you seriously just get _Tali_ to _not_ shoot a _geth_?"

Terra smiled. "I'm getting to be a real miracle worker."

Garrus laughed. "And we all thought coming back from the dead was a big deal."

She laughed with him before following him to the battery, no plan in mind except to stay close to him while Tali and Legion attempted to put old wounds behind them.

She was actually making friends with a geth. Would wonders never cease?


	52. The Path to the Core

Chapter 52: The Path to the Core

As we approach our destination  
With every moment we let pass  
The only thing we can be sure of  
Is to make each moment last

Garrus had been in the battery all of ten minutes before he got called over to the med bay by Dr. Chakwas (not that he was getting much work done with Terra right there…). Terra was close behind, a bit worried at first but then a bit delighted when the message was that they could take the bandages off now.

"You don't seem particularly enthusiastic," Chakwas told Garrus as he sat down on one of the beds with Terra on his left, "You're not nervous, are you?"

"Me?" Garrus retorted, "No. I'm just relieved. I've been waiting for weeks."

"Yes, long enough for the cybernetics to do their part. A little medi-gel, some checks on the surgery, and you'll be fine."

Garrus was tough, sure, but he wasn't the type to sit still. Terra wasn't either, but she wasn't missing this. She sat there with him, holding his hand so tight between hers that he didn't dare move and break the contact. Having her in such close proximity was as soothing to him as it was exhilarating. It certainly served to distract him from the fact he was in a med bay. He was so caught up in the feeling of her fingers around his talons and her pulse pounding softly against his that he almost forgot where they were until the moment of truth.

The very second she could, she brought him to face her. The plates had indeed reformed, scarred though they may be. She took a few moments to appreciate the artistry few would find in them before tenderly resting her hand over them. He smiled at the touch, laying his hand over hers to bring her closer. She smiled in response as her fingers slowly felt the cracks in his face and committed the sensation to memory. They stayed there for a moment, Garrus so lost in her eyes that he didn't think to ask if the scars were any better or if she even minded, gradually drawing closer—

_"Commander," Joker cut in over the PA _(he was making a real habit of that)_, "the IFF is nearly installed. If you wanna come up, we can plot a course to test it out."_

Terra sighed. "Right. On my way."

Garrus smirked. "Don't be gone too long."

She smirked back slyly. "Well, we have to test out the new look, don't we?"

When she was back in the CIC, Joker and EDI informed her that the IFF was functioning properly, but there seemed to be some unusual instability in other systems as a result and EDI wanted to give it a few tests before they tried to actually use it. Terra agreed—because "better safe than sorry" was true even when it wasn't in reference to incorporating Reaper tech onto her beloved ship—and went along with Miranda's suggestion to gather the squad in the shuttle and head out.

Suffice to say, it was a good thing the nearest anomaly comprising a mission was only half a system away from the _Normandy_'s current position, because that shuttle was not meant to hold 13 passengers at the same time. …at least, not when one was a krogan.

Terra and Garrus were the only ones who didn't complain about the restricted space, however. Mostly because they wound up pressed against each other in a corner, so much so that they were out of sight of more than half the squad and able to kiss each other senseless again. Which would have kept working had Grunt not finally been shoved to the floor so Jack could reposition. They were expecting to be mocked in a manner proportionally shameless to their actions, but the suddenness still shocked them apart.

"Oh, get a room, you two, would you?!" Zaeed snapped.

"Find us one then!" Terra snapped back, still pointedly holding onto her mate and not shifting position.

"I'm not one to do down some PDA," Kasumi shrugged, "but you could've waited until we deployed."

"Could we have?"

"Uh, what does 'PDA' mean?" Garrus asked.

Terra sighed, rolling her eyes. "'Public displays of affection."

"Oh." He smirked, his talons grazing her arm. "What's wrong with that? Kasumi already told everyone."

"Yeah, hearing and seeing are two very different things, my friend," Jacob shook his head.

"Leave them to it," Samara chided, "As any asari will tell you, we must take our moments of joy whenever possible, if only so the memory will last where time will not."

Terra smiled. She liked that thought and appreciated the justicar backing her up.

"Shepard-Commander?" Legion finally spoke up, "We do not understand the nature of your relationship with Officer Vakarian."

Ah. This, on the other hand, was a challenge.

"They're dating, Legion," Tali helpfully explained, "Organics do have this little thing you may have heard of called 'romance.'"

Legion raised the plates around its eye-light in a gesture of confusion. "But humans and turians are physiologically incompatible."

"Never stopped them before."

"Speaking of which," Mordin spoke up, "can still provide medical recommendations for—"

"AH!" Terra quickly cut him off, "Later! Later. Back on the ship. Not in front of everybody."

"Thank you!" Jack spoke up.

Except for a few much more reserved grumblings among the squad members and some less than subtle amorous glances between Terra and Garrus, the rest of the shuttle ride passed by in relative silence. It was only when they were preparing to touch down and Miranda told them to suit up for an uninhabitable atmosphere that Terra thought to ask her where they were. Miranda gave the evasive answer of "see for yourself" before the shuttle landed and they disembarked.

Terra took one step into the freezing air and nearly fell to her knees in tears and fears and ashes and ice.

They were on Alchera. In the wreckage of the SR-1.

Miranda sighed sadly. "I may have intercepted a message to you from the Alliance about investigating the crash site. I knew it would upset you and you had enough to worry about, but…"

Terra said something about how she understood, though she didn't pay attention to what words she gave, before wandering blindly into the ruins. Distantly, she could hear Grunt complaining about how there wasn't anything to shoot here and Thane assuring him there would be plenty in a few hours when they returned to the ship and prepared for their final assault on the core. She even noticed how closely Tali was watching her as she heartbrokenly ran her hand along the metal shards that had once been their beloved ship. It was only when she felt Garrus take her side and wrap her hand between his that she shook off the numb feeling spreading through her and let it sink in that this was all that was left of the vessel that had once been a home to her.

This was the very ground over which she had died.

With Garrus there beside her, offering silent support, Terra brought herself to ask Miranda why the Alliance wanted them to check out the crash site, just barely listening to how there were 20 crewmen still considered MIA and mindlessly telling the squad to spread out. Garrus stayed close to her while everyone else gave them space, a few of them even focusing on the "mission" to investigate the wreckage. Once it was just the two of them, she moved closer to the broken remains, finding the section of the hull that bore the designation _Normandy_ was still intact and mournfully running her hand across the N.

Garrus left her to her grieving but still stayed at her side. "Are you OK?"

She shook her head, looking down sadly. "It's not fair. None of it."

"…no. It's not."

She backed up, her eyes drifting over the name of this once beautiful ship. "Did Miranda say something about a memorial?"

"I think so."

"Right. I've got it. You help them out on the other side."

"Are you sure?"

"Go. I'm fine."

He was hesitant to leave her side here, of all places, but he finally nodded and walked away. Every few steps, he looked back to see her give one last cheerless glance to the shattered hull, head onto the shuttle, and then set to work assembling a small monument of sorts to her first ship. Once she was busy, though, he turned his attention to the sift through the wreckage, peripherally noticing how the squad was working together. He smiled to think that only Terra could create a team where a krogan worked so perfectly with both a salarian and a turian or two Cerberus operatives played nice with a bunch of aliens and an anti-Cerberus fanatic or a quarian and a geth actually willfully cooperated. They might just pull this off.

Terra stayed quiet and alone as she worked away by the fraction of the hull that proudly displayed the name of _Normandy_ even in death. She began the task simply distracting herself from flashing back to the crash and the death she experienced shortly after, subconsciously taking note of the occasional COMM signals from her squad-mates to inform her that, as she had suspected, all they were finding of the missing crewmen were the tags that marked their deaths. Halfway through her project, though, she found her thoughts shifting course, her flashbacks reaching further behind to the moments she missed on this ship, memories she didn't want to push aside. She almost smiled wistfully to look back on the days when Kaidan was alive, when Ashley was a friend always ready to talk about poetry or battle tactics, when Liara and Wrex were close by to laugh with…when her bond to Tali was new and her true feelings for Garrus were slowly coming to light. She thought of the crewmates she missed and the way her beloved ship had been when it had flown free through the sky. She hadn't thought seeing what became of it in the end would bring something like closure, but part of her was glad Miranda had sent them here and that she was the one assembling the memorial. As she finished it, she thought of something she could add to it in her capacity as its captain.

After Miranda did a count and determined they had found everything they could around the crash site, the squad rallied on Terra's position, stunned silent at the sight of the small monument she had erected there. An effigy of a ship in flight displayed on a pedestal before the remains of the hull. It was modest, but it was more than enough. Tali stood with Terra in a moment of shared reverence for what they had lost on this broken icy plain before Terra nodded to Tali to let her know it was OK to move on and headed back to the shuttle.

While the others all either followed her or continued to look out at the wreckage, Garrus gave a closer inspection to the monument. It didn't take him long to find the commander's personal touch so neatly inscribed on the base.

So vast a sky was never seen  
As that upon my midnight  
Those constant stars did watchful gleam  
Yet scarce reached out a fateful beam  
To catch my fading life-light

Still I was called to wake alone  
Mid times of dread and sorrow  
To reclaim my home  
Over worlds unknown  
And bid my love to follow

Garrus couldn't help a small rueful smile as he saw the meaning behind the words. The beautiful eloquence didn't hide the intricately woven double meaning—they were as much for Terra herself as they were for the _Normandy_ she lost. He felt like this was a sign she had put it behind her but also that she would never forget it. He didn't know if he could or even should do something about that. He finally came upon with an idea and acted on it.

Terra sat on the shuttle and waited for the others to catch up, waving off any attempts from Legion or Grunt to converse with her. It was only when Garrus climbed back in to sit down next to her that she responded to anyone else's presence. "There's something final about seeing it this way."

Garrus nodded. "There are ways around that, though." He held out what he had retrieved from the wreckage: a small scrap of the plating that bore the Alliance logo.

She took it carefully, smirking to herself. "And here I thought you weren't the sentimental type."

"Why? I still have your drawing of Palaven in my pocket." He moved closer, wrapping his arm around her as she examined the metal in her hands. "Keep it close. Let it remind you of the good old days when things are looking grim."

"I have you for that," she commented. Then she placed the scrap in her pocket and turned to lay her head on his (well, her helmet on his since the shuttle wasn't sealed yet, but it's the gesture that counts). "Thank you."

They stayed there for a moment, ignoring scoffing glances from Grunt and Jack and inquisitive looks from Mordin and Legion, before the sound of the shuttle receiving a message drew their attention. Terra drew away from Garrus to check what it said. Every word sent a chill through her, the thoughts that had been plagued with memory for the past hour now flooded with horrified denial. Until Garrus finally took notice of her reaction and asked what was wrong, she was frozen in place. When he did, she quickly realized they had to go now and sent out a COMM signal to the squad to get back on the shuttle.

The ship was empty when they returned. All except for Joker and EDI, the crew was gone. Terra took one step into the shuttle bay and heard that aching, broken silence emanate from every shadow, every wall, every corner. It wasn't a contemplative silence, it was an empty silence, like the one that preceded her death that she had so despised. It was a silence that abided no joy and life within it. It had no business being on her ship again.

The Collectors had brought it. They were going to pay.

Joker was waiting for them in the COMM room. On the way up, EDI explained exactly what had transpired. Most of them joined Terra in disquiet and mournful rage, but Miranda stormed right up to the pilot and shouted at him until Terra and Jacob talked her down. As EDI informed them, even she couldn't have found the IFF's virus in time to stop the signal that crippled the ship and gave away its position. Miranda was clearly even more incensed about EDI herself, something Tali adamantly agreed with, at the news that Joker had been forced to unshackle her to remove the Collectors, but everyone on the squad who shared that opinion second-guessed it when they heard EDI's defense.

_"I am still bound by the rudimentary limits of my programming to defend the ship. And even if I were not…you are my crewmates."_

Terra had known EDI was useful, but it was only when she heard this, especially in light of the recent discovery of Legion's apparent beneficence, that she found herself persuaded. EDI genuinely was part of the crew, part of the ship itself. Terra had never expected she would come to consider an AI (two now, come to think of it) as anything approximating a friend, but as she told the squad that EDI had had plenty of chances to turn on them and hadn't and thus could be trusted, she thought maybe they were on the path to it already.

Joker was shaken, to say the least. He still stayed professional enough to explain that the IFF was ready and they could hit the relay whenever they wanted. Everyone saw through it. Terra finally followed him back to the bridge and let her joint status of commander and friend to the pilot intersect. He took a page from Miranda's book at first, chewing her out for leaving the ship all but unguarded when they knew the IFF was a risk, paying no attention to how Terra unflinchingly took every biting word because she knew he didn't mean it. Ironically, it was at EDI's insistence that he finally calmed down, proving he had apparently bonded with her in a way over the course of their attempt to defend the ship. "I'm sorry, commander. Not just for yelling at you but…for letting you down."

Terra shook her head. "You could never. You did what you could. You helped EDI and you saved the _Normandy_. And you're gonna help us storm the Collectors and get the crew back."

Joker nodded, already getting his smile back. "Aye-aye, ma'am."

So Terra took her position at the galaxy map just long enough to set their course. EDI warned her there was no going back once they were on their way. She didn't care anymore. They'd already done everything they possibly could to prepare and the crew needed them _now_. They were going. That was that.

Two hours. That was all they had left before they hit Omega-4. Possibly not to return.

Terra went up to her cabin to set the scrap of the SR-1 in a place of honor on her desk. Someday it would serve its purpose and remind of her better times and the value of resilience. Today, though, it only made her hope that the SR-2 wouldn't be reduced to scraps as well.

"So this is it."

She nodded with a deep sigh, stepping away from her desk to look at Garrus as he entered. "This is it."

He stayed close to her, not wanting to leave her side, tonight of all nights, for anything in the galaxy. "We've got two hours, huh? What do we do?"

She smiled softly to think that he was right here for her unquestionably, whatever she needed from him. Then she thought of what she did need from him. "…this…this could be our last night together—" It hurt to say the words.

It hurt him to hear them. "Terra, don't—"

"_If_ it is…" She looked at him, letting her eyes show the emotion behind her words: "…I want to be with you."

It took a moment for her meaning to sink in. When it did, he froze. "You…what?"

"I mean it. We're already mated, we might as well prove it. I was going to suggest it on the SR-1, right before it crashed, and I…" She shuffled back coyly. "…I may have actually taken some of those 'medical recommendations' Mordin was so keen to offer."

That particular notion nearly made him laugh, but seeing how much this was weighing on her… "…you really want this."

She smiled again. "You? More than anything." She wrapped her arms around him. "And we've run out of reasons to wait."

The thought of what lay before them was still heavy on his mind. But even that was pushed aside when he fell into her bright blue eyes again. "So no more waiting."

Just like that, they were kissing again. But this time was different. More seeking and longing and passion lay behind it. Terra didn't want to fall into him this time, she wanted to leap in headlong. So she jumped up into his arms and, like always, he was there to catch her. He held her there for a moment before turning to drop her on the bed and crawling on after her. She took a moment to appreciate the way he looked at her, the way how close he was made her heart race before he even touched her, how badly she wanted what came next. Then she directed his talons to her waist and showed him how to undo her belt.

He followed her, relishing the sensation when his talons slid under her top to press against the warm skin over her hips. Strangely, it felt even more right when her fingers undid the clasps on his clothes and slid in to rest on his carapace. She knew just how to draw him in, too, laying a trail of kisses across his scars in a gesture so affectionate he could only reciprocate by flaring his mandibles against her neck possessively and breathing in her scent as his talons grazed her side.

Loving a turian was nothing like loving a human. Not that she minded in the least. She wanted those differences. She wanted her mate and only him. She wanted her Garrus all to herself, and she wanted him completely, tonight more than ever. So she reached down to tear his gloves off and let his talons caress her flesh unhindered, not giving a thought to the possibility of being scratched or injured—she knew he would never let any harm come to her. He barely seemed to notice, still too wrapped up in the feeling of her against him as they slowly let down every barrier that had managed to remain between them until now.

Everything around them dissolved, as if the need to fully explore each other was all that existed now. Nothing could hope to compare to the sheer ecstasy of simply feeling each other's touch in every nerve they had, of every motion sating a wave of desire only to call forth a new one, of reaching deeper and stronger than they had dared to go before. When they looked back on this moment later, it would only be a pleasant flood of exuberant delight and the sense of uncanny belonging and rapture that can only come from a mated union; as it happened, though, every single second lingered, every kiss and caress and whisper inescapably wondrous to them both, so much so that they didn't dare let go even when their bodies traitorously demanded they stop.

After their joining was over, they lied there beside each other, letting time pass freely with each of them lost in the other's radiant blue eyes. They stayed as close as they could, her hand brushing softly against his scars as his sifted gently through her hair.

She smiled, knowing no words or drawings she could create would ever hope to capture the moment they had just shared. "I love you."

He smiled back, knowing he'd never tire of hearing her musical voice say those three simple but beautiful words that so easily silenced every thought that wasn't of her. "I love you."

She wished she had the capacity to put this night on a loop, to leave the galaxy behind and spend the rest of her life tight in his embrace to the tune of the voice she adored confessing the feelings they shared. "I love you" suddenly seemed too feeble a statement to convey how they felt for each other, but there was no better way she knew. And they didn't need any more potent language. They knew each other's hearts inside out.

They'd stolen them, after all.

Of course, even moments so perfect as this one had to eventually come to an end. EDI finally came over the PA to inform them that they were back in the Sahrabarik system and beginning the approach to the Omega-4 relay. Duty was calling.

For once, they both wished it would take a voicemail.

Terra finally gave Garrus a regretful look. "Ready?"

He merely took her hand. "As long as I'm with you."

So they clung to the memory where they couldn't cling to the moment itself and prepared to head out. It was time to face the Collectors. And end them.


	53. Suicide

Well, this will definitely be the longest chapter in the entire story because I wanted to do this masterful ending justice and thus couldn't cut anything out. It also definitely slowed down my attempts to write ahead in the rest of the story. Don't worry, I'm catching up and I hope this more than makes up for any delays (including the one I accidentally made by forgetting to post this on Sunday :/ ).

Chapter 53: Suicide

In fire and shadow we walk  
The enemy that encroaches in wait below  
That way lies madness  
An end that cannot be avoided  
Still I shoulder my fears and my woes  
And I descend

You could tell the Omega-4 relay was more dangerous than the other mass relays just by looking at it. It was strange enough to have two relays in the same system without one of them being an imposing red rather than a vibrant blue. Terra couldn't help but wonder what the ratio was of curious vessels that went through and never returned to ships that were outright scared away because they knew it was more trouble than it was worth and were right. She just hoped they were about to firmly establish a third camp of ships that safely ventured through. Then again, if things went well, she also hoped they would be the only ship in that camp.

"Approaching the relay," Joker announced through the PA as they began to move in.

Terra took up position behind him. "Everyone standby. We're going in."

_"Reaper IFF activated," EDI confirmed, "Signal acknowledged."_

The IFF hadn't been active for five seconds before Jacob informed them that the drive core was lighting up, which EDI informed them was an unsafe level of electrical discharge that Joker quickly rerouted. Terra didn't take this as a good sign. Still, as they entered the relay, it reacted like any other, drawing the _Normandy_ into its field and catapulting them across space. Everything held tight as hundreds of light-years sped past them until they finally decelerated…to find themselves in the middle of a debris field. Joker reacted remarkably quickly, pulling them up before they could collide with any of the scraps floating through the space around them and then correcting the course once they had a clear path.

Terra didn't know if Joker's heavy sigh was equable to the one she just barely avoided releasing, but she silently agreed with the sentiment that they had come far too close. Hopefully that rush would be enough excitement as they made their way through. But she knew better than to count on that.

As they made their way deeper into the core, Joker looked around at the debris, Terra following close behind. "This must be what's left of all the ships that tried to make it through the relay. Some look _ancient_."

Terra inspected the remains in question. She could see scraps of familiar construction, though none of it was intact enough for her to tell if it was human or turian or even perhaps belonging to some other species she knew, but there were some very unfamiliar that, as Joker had stated, appeared very old. Was it possible they were Prothean? Had the Protheans once attempted this very mission, trying to chase down the monsters the Reapers had created from their own people? …on second thought, she didn't want to know.

_"I have detected an energy signature near the edge of the accretion disk," EDI said._

Terra nodded. "Must be the Collector base. Take us in for a closer look." She cast one last glance at the debris surrounding them, the entire core specked with it. "Tread carefully while you're at it."

She was right to make that suggestion. They flew carefully, as slowly as they dared, with the stealth systems engaged. And yet they still found trouble. Three bogies on their tail, presumably Reaper fighters, flew in and started firing right at them. Joker took evasive maneuvers, managing to avoid the worst of it long enough to shoot one down. The next one snuck up behind them and sent out a shot that tore right into the plating but thankfully not through it. Terra made a mental note to thank Jacob and Mordin for putting in the effort on reinforcing the ship's armor.

Just as they were about to either lose the fighters or take another down, though, one seemed to preempt their next maneuver and launched itself at them.

_"Alert!" EDI spoke up once the ship was stable, "Hull breach on engineering deck."_

Joker ran a quick scan, finding an enemy presence on the lowest deck. "It's in the cargo hold!"

Terra quickly raced to the armory to grab the heavy weapons. "We've got this one," she told Joker before turning to her COMM, "Garrus, Grunt, meet me in the cargo bay!"

Most of the squad had been keeping their weapons on hand and constantly checking the ammo and upgrades ever since they started their approach to the relay, so Garrus and Grunt were ready and waiting when she arrived in the cargo bay. Unfortunately, so was the Oculus. The name was appropriate since the machine was basically a large eye with a laser stare that would tear right through their shields. Terra wasn't afraid of it. She was just furious it was daring to intrude on her ship. So when they saw that their rifles weren't penetrating its armor and Garrus' tech attacks weren't affecting it and they didn't have enough time between attacks to develop a strategy, Terra made the logical choice: she tossed the flamethrower to Grunt and the grenade launcher to Garrus and pulled out a particle beam they had retrieved from Horizon so all three of them could lay into it at once with heavy fire.

Grunt was clearly outright giddy with his choice of battle-master and Garrus was clearly thinking of ways to pay her back when they were out of here.

The concentrated fire did manage to chase the Oculus out of the bay momentarily, but it was in that moment that things really got worse. Joker came over the COMM to inform them that the only way they were losing the rest of the machines chasing after them was to shake them off in the debris field. If anyone else was at the helm, Terra would start frantically trying to talk him down; even with Joker doing it, she was nervous with the decision. But he was right they didn't have a choice, though EDI cautioned them that the shields weren't designed to take very many collisions, so they would have to either not make any or hope that the upgrades held. As it was, they had to reroute non-critical power to make sure the plan ultimately worked, which meant turning off the kinetic stabilizers. Terra, Garrus, and Grunt all had to hold onto something as the ship rattled and rolled. Through the hull breach EDI was keeping shielded, Terra could see just how deep in they'd dove. Which was worth it when she also saw the explosions going off behind them and the worst of the field finally disappearing in the distance.

_"Damage report," she heard Joker over the COMM._

_"Kinetic barriers stable at 30%," EDI answered, "No significant damage."_

Terra breathed a lot easier to hear that. After she thanked Jacob, she was going to have to do something special for Tali.

She'd no sooner processed that relief than the Oculus came back. Garrus and Grunt took cover as quickly as she did, all three of them drawing their weapons at the same time. This round against the machine was a lot harder since it appeared to have suddenly learned to flank them while it was outside, so Terra had to keep on the move and take a few shots whenever it was physically possible. The thing did seem to consider her a priority target, giving Garrus and Grunt a few opportunities to blindside it and…oh. Terra just got a crazy idea. Here's hoping it was just crazy enough to work. She waited until the Oculus pulled away for a moment before she turned to explain the plan to Garrus and Grunt, who agreed it was utterly insane but no less insane than some other things she had tried and succeeded at, and prepared to act on it. So when the Oculus came back in, Garrus jumped straight in to draw its fire, Grunt stormed in to head-butt it (that was definitely the hardest surface he'd head-butted, yet he still shook it off somehow) and put the Firestorm to use, and Terra leaped up from behind her cover to drop down on the Oculus and fire into it point-blank where it couldn't fire back. By the time the thing managed to shake her off, the three of them had worn it down enough that it stopped functioning and finally exploded.

Garrus took a moment to catch his breath. "I think it's gonna stay dead this time."

Terra nodded as she recovered. "Right. No more jumping on things for a while."

Before Garrus could retort, Joker came over her COMM to let her know they were about to clear the debris field. The three of them headed back up to the bridge together, watching as the last of the starship graveyard they had arrived in fell behind them. With those obstructions out of view, there was nothing to obscure the station in the distance from sight. It was like an insect hive built over a metal skeleton, rocky and disturbing and more alien than any station in the galaxy Terra had set foot on before. It raised her curiosity for how the Protheans would have reacted to seeing it, but since those questions would never be answered, she focused on how badly she wanted to blow the whole base out of the sky.

"See if you can find a place to land without drawing attention," Terra told Joker as they moved in carefully.

Joker winced. "Too late. Looks like they're sending out an old friend to greet us."

Those were words Terra didn't want to hear. One look out the viewport, though, proved him right. A hatch in the base was opening to let the Collector ship that had plagued her life and death for two years crawl into the open space between them to bar their path and attack. Terra was far more infuriated to see this thing than she was to see the base itself. But there were ways of airing that out now: "We've got a Thanix cannon for a reason. Use it!"

Joker smiled at that order and carried it out.

One shot tore right through the enemy ship's armor. It was all Terra could do not to break out into a cheer at the sight of the vessel taking damage from the reincarnation of the very frigate it had once destroyed. She still wound up clutching Garrus' hand behind her back and restraining what would under any other circumstances have been a jump for joy. "Get in close and finish them off!"

"Everyone hold on!" Joker affirmed, "Gonna be a wild ride!"

It was. They were still conserving the power that would normally go to the kinetic stabilizers, so they all lost their footing every time the ship turned, which happened several times to maneuver swiftly and skillfully under and around the Collector ship. It was all worth it to see the fireworks that came the moment they battered through the ship and tore it to shreds.

So Terra's to-do list for after the mission was over was now: 1) thank Jacob, 2) quadruple-thank Mordin, 3) have a girls' night with Tali, and 4) seal off the battery to make out with Garrus nonstop for a few hours and call it gratitude for the cannon. Actually, she could get a head-start on that last one by right now throwing her arms around her turian and giving a quick kiss of victory that he wordlessly confirmed was both greatly appreciated and reciprocated.

"LOOK OUT!" Miranda suddenly called.

A shockwave ran through the space outside from the destruction of the Collector ship. Apparently, the celebrations were going to have to wait, because the entire ship buckled under the force.

_"Mass effect field generators unresponsive," EDI announced, "All hands brace for impact."_

They braced all they could, but it still threw them when the left wing collided with the base. Joker corrected as best he was able, yet even that did nothing, resulting in a crash landing that they were very fortunate ended with the underside of the ship touched down on the base rather than any other messier configuration. When it was over, they had a dozen hull breaches, some broken infrastructure, and a massive power loss. No casualties, though, and they had landed at their target destination with an atmosphere to accommodate them, so, as far as Terra was concerned, still technically a win.

Terra pulled herself together quickly. "Is everyone OK?"

While her squad-mates pulled themselves up with some brief affirmative answers, Joker leaned back in his chair with a groan. "I think I broke a rib…or all of them."

_"Multiple core systems overloaded during the crash," EDI stated, "Restoring them will take time."_

Miranda shook her head. "We always knew this was likely a one-way trip."

Terra wasn't letting that stand. "We do whatever it takes to take down the Collector base, but I'm not losing my ship again or anyone on it."

Joker smirked. "Glad you're in charge."

_"I do not detect an internal security network," EDI said, "It is possible the Collectors did not expect anyone to reach the base."_

"So if we're lucky, they might not even know we're alive."

A slim chance, but Terra was taking any advantage they could get at this point. "Everyone to the COMM room!" she ordered to the whole squad, "Time to move in."

Five minutes later, the 13 members of the _Normandy_ squad were gathered in the COMM room, all preparing their weapons as EDI compiled the data they needed to establish their battle plan. Once Terra had confirmation everyone was ready, she took the front and had EDI display her scans on the holo-table.

_"You should be able to overload their critical systems if you get to the main control center here," EDI explained, highlighting the point on the scan as well as their current position._

Jacob checked the scans. "That means going through the heart of the station, right past this massive energy signature."

Terra looked at the signature. "That's the central chamber. If the crew or any of the colonists are still alive, they're probably holding them there."

"Looks like there are two main routes. Might be a good idea to split up to keep the Collectors off-balance then regroup in the central chamber."

"No good," Miranda countered, "Both routes are blocked. See these doors? They only open from the inside."

As much as Terra didn't like the idea of splitting up, this seemed to be their only option, so she started looking for a way around it. "There's always another way." She quickly ran through the scan until she found something. "Here! This ventilation shaft opens on our end and comes out on the other side of the doors. We can send someone to sneak through that way."

"Sounds like a suicide mission," Jacob said, ignoring the irony of his statement. Then he turned pointedly to Terra. "I volunteer."

"I appreciate the thought, Jacob," Miranda said, "but you couldn't shut down the security systems in time. We need to send a tech expert."

Tech experts they had. Garrus and Mordin had more than a few technical skills, after all, and they had some genuine hacking aficionados in the form of Tali and Legion. When it came down to it, though, there was one person Terra trusted more than anyone when it came to tech conundrums. So Terra made the call: "Tali, you're up."

Tali smiled behind her helmet. "I won't let you down."

_No,_ Terra couldn't help but think, _You never do._ "The rest of us will break into two teams and head down each passage. That should at least draw the Collectors' attention away from the vents."

"I'll lead the second fire-team, Shepard," Miranda stepped up, "We'll meet you on the other side of the doors."

"Not so fast, cheerleader," Jack scoffed, "Nobody wants to take orders from you."

"This isn't a popularity contest! Lives are at stake! Shepard, you need someone who can command loyalty through experience."

Terra had a problem with this one. Miranda had been the logical choice since she was used to taking charge and had technically been her XO this whole time. But Jack's concern was genuinely valid, so it had to be someone else. And there was only person on the team who knew how to lead like she did, who she would trust with her squad-mates' lives. She hesitated to say it, though, since she didn't like the thought of going in there separately. But it had to be done. They both knew it. So she steeled herself and said it: "Garrus. Second team's yours."

The rest of the team each seemed unsurprised (because who else could she possibly have picked?) or astonished (because she literally never went anywhere without him except for Samara's hunt on Omega) while Garrus himself was stunned. He hadn't been expecting that. As Miranda was giving some offhanded comment about "at least he knows what he's doing," he looked at Terra as if to ask if she was sure about this. She answered with a reassuring look as she nodded, letting him know she trusted him and she could make it without him long enough to get this done, if only because he was only a COMM away. The last time he had led a team hadn't ended well, but he knew by now that she understood him better than he understood himself. If she thought he could do this, if she had faith in him, there was no point in arguing. So he nodded and prepared to step up.

This was the point at which Commander Shepard was to give a rousing speech to the squad before they started assigning people to the first and second teams. In this instance, though, Terra felt the need to inspire outweighed the need for eloquence and adjusted course accordingly: "We don't know what we're gonna find there. We don't even know how many they've taken. But what matters is making sure they don't take one more. We are stopping at nothing to save our people, every last one of them, and to stop the Collectors once and for all. We stand together and we cannot fall." She drew her pistol, turning to lead them into the fray. "They wanted to know. Let's go show them what we're made of."

Once everyone was in position to move out, it was just a matter of dividing the team. Tali to the vents. Terra, Grunt, Miranda, Legion, Mordin, and Kasumi down the main hall. Garrus, Zaeed, Jacob, Jack, Samara, and Thane down the secondary corridor. It was remarkable Terra and Garrus were able to part ways with nothing more than a few meaningful looks (even that much drew some knowing smirks from some of the other squad members), yet they managed nonetheless. In a few moments, the mission was underway.

Terra took the time to watch everyone head out when they moved in, making sure no unforeseen speed bumps impeded them right at the start. Once she was satisfied on that count and had everyone on the team accounted for over COMMs, she led them into the base itself. As was to be expected, the Collectors caught sight of them before long and began to deploy to hamper their progress. With five people behind her, it barely slowed them down at first. Then, of course, Harbinger showed up. Terra took that as a comfort, though, since this thing apparently could only take command of one Collector at a time and thus couldn't be causing problems on Garrus' side.

Of course, the fact that Garrus' side was advancing so easily was pretty suspicious to the turian. It was nice to be leading a team again, even in an assault of this magnitude, but half his mind was constantly thinking of her. So it was merely a tactical maneuver to keep his head in the game when he ducked down to reload his rifle and hacked into her COMM so he could hear what was going on at the other end of the base. Nothing more than tactics. Really. There was definitely something reassuring to hearing her voice in his ear when he was scoping down his next target. It was worth whatever her response would be to this particular action. …or maybe he just wouldn't tell her. Maybe.

Terra and her half of the team held their ground with relative ease (Grunt's ferocity coupled with Miranda and Mordin's prowess at disabling their enemies' defense was ridiculously effective) despite the obstacles slowing them down. It was Tali who met with actual trouble. The vents were sealed in eight different places to reroute the heat flow, blocking Tali's progress through the shaft and heating up the portion she was occupying. Luckily, there were maintenance panels on Terra's side that Legion was easily able to hack into to disable the coupling units and open the seals. Unluckily, all of the panels were in very exposed positions and even the geth needed a few seconds to work through the system, so the rest of them had to cover it. Knowing Tali was potentially in danger until all those seals were out of place, though, motivated Terra to push just a little harder. She wasn't letting the Collectors get in her way now.

Within a matter of minutes, Garrus' half of the team had reached the doors. While the others were watching his back, he properly accessed Terra's COMM to inform her "We're in position. Are you almost clear on your end?"

Terra finished off a Collector and turned to look at Legion, disabling the fifth of the eight seals. "Uh…almost. How long can you wait?"

Garrus turned to watch Jack send out a shockwave that outright killed half of the Collectors behind them and lined up two of them for headshots from Thane. He shrugged. "Long enough."

She believed him, but she still signaled the others to pick up the pace. It helped that Legion seemed to have figured out the weaknesses in the Collectors' system and was hacking through the vent seals much quicker now. It also helped that Grunt had gone full blood-rage by now and was tearing through even Harbinger once Miranda had warped through its armor. Most of all, it helped that Terra was taking out all of the emotions that had been boiling inside her the past two years (yes, even when she was dead) on every single Collector that crossed her path with the intention of keeping her from helping Tali and meeting Garrus, that had put her people in danger and taken two years of her life away when her family and her mate had needed her. If they touched her crew, they would find a worse fate than getting spaced was waiting for them.

The final panel was at the end of a mad dash past what had to be three dozen Collectors. Legion preempted Terra's command to circumvent them, though, over-clocking its barriers to run in and hit the controls. Terra calmed down a little bit to know Tali was in position and out of danger, leading her team up to the doors to wait.

Tali hacked through the door on Garrus' side without a hitch. Garrus quickly led his half of the team through. Seeker swarms poured into the chamber behind them, forcing them to hold position until Tali got the door closed.

Unfortunately, Terra could only wait so long. The Collectors they'd been forced to duck past had called backup. "We're in position!" she called through her COMM, "We need this door open _now_!"

The second Garrus heard her, he took action, pulling Tali away from the door to get her to the other one. "Go! We'll cover you!"

Tali nodded and raced over, setting to work on the controls. "Something's wrong! The door's stuck!"

Terra had to fight the urge to panic when she heard that (and fight Grunt's urge to head-butt the door to "loosen it"). She focused on holding their position and making sure no one got hurt in the process. Tali would do it.

And she did. Before long, the door opened, letting Terra and her half of the team race through. The obvious downside being that the door was now stuck _open_ with _nearly 100 Collectors_ on the other side.

Garrus had just managed to get the other door closed when he heard Terra ordering the others to fall back. Not happening. He quickly ordered the rest of the team to regroup. "Suppressing fire! Don't let anything through that door!"

Even with all of them working together, it was a difficult task to keep the Collectors at bay. They managed anyway, Tali finally slamming the door shut and sealing it behind them.

Terra took this chance to catch her breath since she wasn't sure they would get another one. "Nice work, Tali."

Tali nodded. "Let's not do that again."

Terra smiled as she agreed, giving the quarian a friendly hand to bring her back to her feet.

"Shepard!" Miranda called as they opened the path to the central chamber, "You need to see this."

Terra wasn't sure she wanted to, but she went along with it, following Miranda down the path. As the others entered behind her, she took in the scene before her. Tubes and pipes ran along the ceiling of the entire chamber. The metal walls were lined with the pods that had carried away the Collectors' human captives. It was about as populated by them as the ship had been. Against her better judgment, Terra approached one and found that these pods could be seen through, revealing one of the missing colonists inside. The rest of the pods were clearly occupied, likely with the stolen _Normandy_ crew. Terra wasn't letting this stand, quickly scanning the pod for some means of opening it before…before…

The pod was going active somehow. And the colonist inside woke up when it did. Terra moved fast, trying to get the pod open, but there was no way she could have. The colonist inside died clawing at the door as her blood filled what became her coffin.

Terra set aside her horror and disgust in favor of her drive to act, calling out to the entire squad to open every pod they could reach. It took a frantic moment for any of them to figure out how to penetrate the seals on the pods before they managed to get one open. After that, it was as if they had all opened at once, letting out every surviving captive they could find. All of their lost crew members were accounted for, though none of the colonists were, and all of them collapsed before finally coming back to themselves.

Dr. Chakwas was the last one out, falling into Terra's arms as she slowly awoke. "…Shepard? You came for us."

Terra helped her up. "Was there ever a doubt I would? No man left behind, doctor."

Chakwas managed a small smile before the weight of the situation collapsed back on her. "The colonists were…processed. Those swarms of little robots, they…melted their bodies into gray liquid and pumped it through these tubes."

Terra had seen the last one. Now the horror and disgust of the sight was compounded with outrage. "We're shutting them down. _Hard_."

"We've done well so far," Miranda nodded, "Let's hope we can finish the job."

Terra turned on her COMM. "Joker. You got a fix on our position?"

_"Roger that, commander," Joker answered, "All those tubes lead into the main control room. It's right above you. The room is blocked by a security door, but there's another chamber that runs parallel to the one you're in."_

_"I cannot recommend that," EDI cut in, "Thermal emissions suggest the chamber is overrun with seeker swarms. Mordin's countermeasure cannot protect you against so many at once."_

Terra started strategizing again. They didn't need to hide if they could hold the swarms at bay. They needed a shield. "What about biotics?"

Samara nodded. "Yes, I could maintain a field to get a small team through if everyone stayed close."

"I could do it, too," Miranda shrugged, "In theory, any biotic could."

Yeah, in theory. Terra wasn't taking chances with her team's life. They needed someone they knew had enough power to keep up something like that for a long time, which left Samara herself or… "Jack's with me. We'll head through the side chamber while everyone else goes down the main passage, then we'll open the security door from the other side and regroup in the control chamber."

Garrus didn't give himself a chance to hesitate this time before stepping up. "We'll keep the defenders busy, you slip around the back."

"What about the rest of the crew, Shepard?" Chakwas spoke up, "We're in no shape to fight."

_"We've got enough systems online to do a pickup," Joker answered, "but we'll need to land a ways back from your position."_

"We can't afford to go back, Shepard," Miranda asserted, "not now."

"No, but they'll never make it without help," Terra countered, "Jacob can take them back."

"On it," Jacob nodded, "Joker, send me the coordinates, I'm on my way."

Terra quickly readied her weapon. "Let's get moving while we still can. Grunt, Legion, you're on me."

Garrus didn't like leaving her again so soon after regrouping, but it was only for a few more moments before they could stick together through the final push, so he resigned himself to watching her go and hoping Grunt and Legion would be sufficient to watch her back. Besides, she wanted him to protect the rest of the squad in her stead, and he wasn't about to let her down. So he took up the lead and went to the main passage.

Terra was glad she told Jack to take the precaution of creating the shield before they even entered the corridor, because "overrun" had been an understatement. She could barely see five feet past the barrier for swarms upon swarms of tiny robotic insects. Having seen what those things did to people, she told Grunt and Legion to keep close as they moved in (Legion was a geth, so it might not have the same reaction to the swarms, but Terra wasn't willing to test that). The corridor itself seemed to be fairly short, so it wouldn't be so bad if maintaining the barrier didn't slow Jack down. It did, though, so they just had to deal with the feeling of being closed in by a flickering cloud that wanted them dead. Not to mention their COMMs failed almost immediately and Terra lost her link to the rest of the team. It was almost a relief when the Collectors showed up.

Garrus wasn't so relieved. When he had the second team ready to start storming the main passage, he called Terra to let her know and was met with static. He tried hacking in again, only to be met with interference on her end. She was out of contact until they reached the end of the hall. Not good. He forced himself not to worry, though, because he was no good to anyone if he was busy worrying about her. He just had to trust Jack to keep her safe until they reached the next chamber. Honestly, that was harder than leading the team against everything the Collectors threw at them.

Terra, on the other hand, was again feeling like Garrus had the better end of the split. Not only did he have more backup and maneuverability than her this time, she was still drawing Harbinger's fire. Jack couldn't even help them because it was taking all she had to hold the barrier in place—a barrier that she could only keep thick enough to keep out the swarms and not to actually hold off enemy fire, at least not as much as Terra would prefer. In this particular situation, Grunt was a bit out of his element, seeing as how he couldn't charge anybody without running right into the swarms, but he just made use of his shotgun to take down all the hostiles that came too close while Terra and Legion sniped down the rest. She was amazed how well she worked with the geth (not quite as well as with Garrus or Tali, but extraordinarily close); she was going to have to bring it out more, maybe even make friends with it.

Making friends with a geth. Still not how she had seen things going when she started this mission.

They moved in short bursts between waves, keeping their heads down in case any got the jump on them. They fell into a rhythm within the first two, all working together from their small sector and holding their opponents at bay. It was only when they were approaching the end of the corridor and a series of husks began to flood in that they actually met with some difficulty. Terra and Legion were forced to fall back as far as they could and go on the defensive to avoid being flanked. At the same time, though, Grunt was able to charge in again, back to joyously blasting his opponents apart, and the husks couldn't last long against that. The Scion at the end was the true obstacle, one Terra and Legion were fully prepared to combat with the full force of their rifles…until Grunt charged it at the edge of the barrier, tore off its arm, and beat it to death with it.

Terra blinked. "Grunt? Remind me not to get on your bad side." Once she was sure they were clear, she signaled Jack to keep moving. Jack was struggling now—even she couldn't maintain a barrier like this forever. They were approaching the exit, though, so Terra supported her as best she could for the last few meters. It was working well enough until they actually started closing in on the door. Then the reinforcements came. Legion and Grunt were able to hold off the worst of it so they could hurry, but Jack was still having trouble just staying upright.

Until Terra opened the door to let Legion and Grunt hurry into the next chamber. Then Jack turned right around, called all the biotic strength she had left, and unleashed it in one massive shockwave that threw every living thing in the corridor back. As she made sure Jack was recovering enough to get past the door and seal it behind them, Terra made a note not to get on _her_ bad side either.

Once the door was sealed, they were clear of the interference and their COMMs sputtered to life again. Terra would take comfort from that if not for the first thing she heard being a voice she loved driven frantic. _"—Shepard, do you copy? TERRA! Where are you?!"_

She answered as quickly as she could. "I'm here, Garrus. What's going on?"

_"We're pinned down at the door and taking heavy fire!"_

Terra moved faster than she ever had in her life, pushing Legion to the nearby control panel to open the door as she readied her rifle. She was _not_ letting _anything_ hurt her turian. "We're coming, just hold on!"

Legion had the door open in two seconds flat, immediately exposing the entire chamber to a volley of Collector fire. Once Terra was certain everyone was accounted for, she signaled Legion to slam it shut before anything else got through. And the exact second it did so, Garrus took a shot to the gut, between the plates in his armor. Terra reacted instantly, stowing her gun and racing to his side with the medi-gel ready to go.

He took her by the wrist when she arrived. "I'm fine. I'm fine."

She sighed with relief, laying her head on his once she was sure it really was just a flesh wound. "Don't cut it so close, hon." After exchanging some lighthearted smirks in response to the comment, she turned to check on everyone else. No injuries to report so far, so she pinged her COMM.

_"Mr. Taylor's group just arrived, Shepard," EDI answered, "No casualties."_

One less weight off her chest then. They were nearly home-free, too. Going exactly as planned for once. She had hoped, but she wouldn't have bet on that. Things never went to plan.

_"There should be some nearby platforms that can take you to the main control console. From there, you can overload the systems and destroy the base."_

_"Commander?" Joker cut back in, "You've got a problem. Hostiles massing just outside the door. Won't be long until they bust through."_

Ah. There was the kink in the plan, then. Terra moved to secure the platform, wasting no time in telling the rest of squad "We need to establish a rear guard to keep the Collectors from overwhelming us."

Miranda agreed. "Pick a team to go with you. Everyone else will stay here and defend this position."

Terra had barely turned to check ranks before Garrus and Tali had clambered onto the platform alongside her. "I didn't even say anything yet."

Tali smirked. "You didn't have to, Terra."

Garrus nodded. "We're right behind you."

Terra couldn't help but smile. "You always are." She turned to the rest of the squad. "We've made it this far. They're not stopping us now." She smiled again, letting her commander side fade to show how she had truly come to regard them all—a family. "Make me proud." She had no doubt they would.

The platform carried them halfway to the main control chamber before it stalled to allow an ambush by Collector forces. With Garrus and Tali behind her, Terra had little trouble tearing through them. All they were doing by throwing themselves at the _Normandy_ crew was giving said crew another platform to carry them across the gap.

"We're at the heart of the station," Terra spoke into her COMM as they began to near their final destination, "EDI, what can you tell us?"

_"All the tubes lead to a large structure," EDI informed them, "It is emitting both organic and synthetic energy signatures. …Shepard…if my calculations are correct…the structure…is a _Reaper_."_

No sooner had the AI said so than they emerged in the chamber to see it. Terra shuddered at the sight of it. "Not just any Reaper…" It wasn't exactly a Reaper like Sovereign. It was only half formed, for one thing…and that form was in the shape of a human.

It wasn't even Terra that seemed the most disgusted by this revelation. It was Garrus. As the platform clicked into place and allowed them to move freely again, he set to snarling at the mere sight of it. Those were his mate's people that had been taken and experimented on and _harvested_ to create that thing, her kind's form it was mocking. He wouldn't stand for it. "This thing is abomination. EDI! How do we destroy it?!" He said it with as much conviction as he held his rifle. He was destroying it no matter what the answer was.

_"The tubes feeding the organic material into the Reaper are a structural weakness," EDI answered, "Destroying them will cause the Reaper to fall."_

Garrus would've scoped down all four of the tubes in question right that second had they not deployed shields. It was likely the shields would come up again when the next samplings of "organic material" came through, but before that could happen, another wave of Collectors came in to head them off. Terra and Garrus kept their sniper rifles at the ready, leaving Tali and her shotgun and drone to hold off any hostiles that came too close. Harbinger was coming out every 30 seconds now, but Terra knew how to deal with it. The Collectors soon learned the main issue with facing down Terra Shepard, Garrus Vakarian, and Tali'Zorah vas Normandy at the same time: on the rare, _rare_ chance you manage to land even a single hit on one of them, the other two react with astonishing ferocity. The monsters that used to be Prothean fell all the same. Almost immediately afterwards, the tubes in the ceiling lowered their shields. Terra and Garrus each let off two shots and all four tubes shattered, sending the entire proto-Reaper collapsing into the abyss below.

Terra quickly made her way from the platform to the control center. "Ready the _Normandy_, Joker," she called into her COMM, "I'm about to overload this place and blow it sky-high."

_"Roger that, commander," Joker answered, "The rest of the team is holding. We'll be ready on your signal."_

Terra was holding him to that. She knelt down to open the central control and expose it—

_"Shepard."_

One word from that voice over her COMM and Terra was fuming. _ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!_ She was about to lay into the Illusive Man and ask him how he was even connected to their COMMs. She elected to forego the second part of that—it was fairly obvious that either someone on the crew was giving him one last chance to appeal to her (with either terrible or perfect timing) or some of the surveillance EDI had warned her was still in place on the ship (once the shackles had been removed and permitted her to say so) was connecting him to their communications. Instead, she settled for "I'll give you five seconds to get off of this line."

_"Don't be hasty, commander. I'm here to offer a compromise."_

She'd had enough of compromising with this idiot. It was only because she was busy exposing the controls that she didn't hang up so hard she might crush her COMM.

_"I'm looking over the schematics from EDI's scans."_

Surveillance then. The second they were back on the ship, she was making use of the time they would have newly acquired to have EDI and Miranda help her track down every last device perpetuating that problem and smashing them all with a hammer.

_"A timed radiation pulse would kill the remaining Collectors but leave the technology intact. This could be our chance. They were building a Reaper. That kind of information could give us the edge we need."_

"And you think I would let you have it?! Why by all the spirits would I ever trust you?!"

_"Shepard, think this through. I didn't discard you because I knew your value. Don't be so quick to discard this facility."_

That was as much as the squad was willing to sit through.

"I'm sorry, _what_?!" Tali stepped in, "You didn't _discard _her?!"

"Not to discount the fact that you saved her life," Garrus added, "but you had _no right_ to do what you did to her!"

_"You know what?" Miranda cut in from the other side of the line, "He's right. We didn't. And you don't have any right to desecrate the memory of the people who died here either!"_

_"Miranda," the Illusive Man retorted, "don't be shortsighted! Tell them—!"_

_"Or what? You'll kill me? Replace me next?"_

_"I gave you an order!"_

_"I noticed. I just don't care. Shepard doesn't answer to you, and as of this moment, neither do I."_

_"I'm with her," Jacob added, "Consider this my resignation."_

Terra smiled. Good to see she had a team she could count on. "EDI? Do me a favor and _delete _that frequency this time."

_"Shepard!" the Illusive Man tried one last time, "Think about all Cerberus has done for you! You—!"_ It didn't matter what he said next. EDI made sure they didn't need to hear it.

Terra had already cut her ties with Cerberus, but it was nice to slam that door behind her and ensure Jacob and Miranda followed along. She would take some real pleasure in the finality of it when she was sure her ship was wholly and indisputably _hers_. First things first, though, she finished her work on the controls, letting Tali step in to complete the hack itself and set the overload. "Let's get moving. We've got ten minutes before this entire station explodes."

That was when the platforms started shaking.

"…please don't tell me there's a Reaper behind us."

Tali winced with dread as she looked behind them and saw a metallic hand reach up from below to grab the farthest platform. "OK. I won't tell you."

Terra groaned, grabbing Garrus and Tali and ducking down as the proto-Reaper emerged to send an energy blast out in all directions that would have decimated their shields if not _them_. "Nothing's ever simple."

In this particular instance, truer words were never spoken. The proto-Reaper was utterly invulnerable to their fire except in its eyes and exposed heart, which were only visible when it was popping up to attack, and the Collectors were still coming. Seeing as how poking their heads up for more than a few seconds or changing their position with the proto-Reaper attacking the platforms themselves was guaranteed to get them killed, Terra told Garrus and Tali to stay down with her and not go anywhere. Tali quickly switched to her pistol and called her drone to guard their perimeter while Terra and Garrus started sniping the proto-Reaper through the eyes as quickly as they could every time it dared to peer out at them. In her head, Terra was ticking down the ten minutes left to them to clear out and frantically searching for a weakness to exploit so they could finish this thing off and _run_. Neither Garrus nor Tali seemed to have any special attacks that proved an advantage over even those weakest points in the monstrosity's armor. If Mordin hadn't upgraded their sniper rifles so well, shooting it would be an even slower solution. _Think, Terra, think, there's always something._

That's when she heard the now eerily familiar sound of Harbinger "Assuming direct control."

…

Light bulb.

She didn't give herself a chance to talk herself out of this or even explain what crazy idea she was about to carry out to Garrus and Tali. She just told her confused teammates to cover her while still staying down and started circling around. There wasn't much time to move between attacks from the proto-Reaper, so she made full use of any cybernetics enhancing her speed as she snuck up behind Harbinger, who was thankfully distracted temporarily by Chatika. Then when the proto-Reaper stuck its head out again, she did what was indisputably the craziest thing she had done so far (yes, including tackling two different krogan battle-masters and an YMIR mech) and jumped out to draw the fire of both the proto-Reaper and Harbinger.

And then ducked down when they both fired, causing the proto-Reaper's attack to incinerate Harbinger's puppet while the energy blast it had set off flew into the Reaper embryo's exposed heart.

"Has anyone ever told you you're _absolutely insane_?!" Tali asked when Terra dove back down to their level.

Terra smirked with a shrug. "Worked, didn't it?"

Naturally, that was the moment at which the proto-Reaper started struggling to pull itself back up again.

"…sort of."

Tali rolled her eyes behind her helmet and took it from there, one shot from her pistol and a self-destruct from Chatika finishing off the titanic abomination. "You're welcome."

Things still weren't any simpler, though. Just as they abandoned their cover, the proto-Reaper came crashing down…sending the platforms they were standing on tumbling down. Garrus and Terra just barely managed to keep their footing, but Tali stumbled and started falling. Terra reacted without even thinking, diving into a slide to reach out and catch her. Terra only managed to catch her as she was falling off the edge, but the platform they were on was just level enough for them both to get back on with Garrus' help. No sooner were they out of immediate danger, though, than the platform outright dropped.

The next thing Terra knew, she was collapsed on a floor near the end of the chamber. She quickly pulled herself together and checked everything—Garrus and Tali were right there with her, shaken up but OK; they still had two minutes before the detonation; COMMs were functioning. She rushed over to help Garrus and Tali back to their feet to get ready to _run_.

_"Commander!" Joker came over the COMM just as they were back on their feet, "Come on, Shepard, do you read?"_

"I'm here, Joker," she answered, "Did the ground team make it?"

_"Everyone's fine, they all got back onboard. We're just waiting for you."_

Terra had been so busy fighting for her own life that she hadn't realized just how much she was worrying for her team. Hearing they all made it went far beyond relief.

"**Human.**"

She'd celebrate later.

Garrus and Tali only needed to hear one word and see the seeker swarms emerging to start running. Terra took a few shots to let them get ahead, but it did nothing to deter the robot bugs, so she stowed her pistol again and raced after her companions. They had one minute left.

"**You have changed nothing.**"

They had a clear shot through a corridor that led outside. Terra pinged Joker's COMM to make sure the _Normandy_ would be ready to meet them there. Then she caught up to Garrus and Tali and kept running. 45 seconds.

"**Your species has the attention of those infinitely your greater.**"

More Collectors were coming out of the woodwork to slow them down, but Tali was able to hold them off with some help from Chatika. The exit was in sight. 30 seconds.

"**That which you know as Reapers are your salvation through destruction.**"

The _Normandy_ did indeed fly in to meet them there, hovering in place so Joker could open the portside airlock and, in a rare show of firearm proficiency, lay down some covering fire. Garrus hurried in to jump aboard, Tali close behind. Terra was right behind them until a collapsing platform came down and broke the rock path leading up to the jump. But Terra didn't stop. She was about to see how far those Cerberus cybernetics could get her. She got as much of a running start as she could then jumped off of the edge, reaching for the airlock. She just barely made it, clinging to the floor. Garrus and Tali were right there and quick to pull her up. The moment she was back inside the airlock, she slammed down on the door controls and cut them off from the Collectors' fire, letting Joker drop the gun and hobble back to the pilot's seat.

_"Detonation in 10," EDI warned, "9…8—"_

"Yeah, we get the gist of it, EDI!" Joker snapped, "Everyone hold on!"

Terra was rooted to the bridge as they turned to fly away. Her eyes were glued to the viewport to watch the Collector base disappear into the distance.

And explode.

Once the _Normandy_ had safely jumped away, the entire squad gathered, celebrating at the knowledge that it was finally over, that they'd done it, that they had won and all walked out alive. Grunt was still overjoyed at how glorious their final stand had been. Several of the others took the time to extol or support Terra's final decision, Miranda and EDI promising to help her remove any and all remaining Cerberus surveillance from the ship. Joker was handling some intel EDI had managed to compile over the Reapers, including evidence that "Harbinger" was one of them. The crewmen were still taking the time to display their gratitude for the rescue. Tali outright hugged Terra.

Garrus didn't get the chance to do anything before Terra jumped to kiss him triumphantly, ignoring the smirks and eye rolls from their squad-mates. He returned the embrace instantly, one arm wrapped around her waist to keep her close as the other drifted up to run his talons through her hair. He was so enamored with the sensation that he was reluctant to separate until the time came he had to breathe.

She stayed close, her every breath a warm and gentle caress on his scars. "Let's call home."

He smiled. Now that there was no question of their survival odds, there was no reason they couldn't give their family the good news they were undoubtedly needing. All of it. Seeing them again would certainly feel like confirmation that the worst was behind them. They needed that. "Tonight."

She clung to him, looking forward to the reunion and the period of peace they had won, however brief it might end up being.

They had braved the core itself and conquered it. Nothing was going to stop them now.


	54. Breaking the Shadows

OK, so this one is also very long, though not quite as long, but I promise it's not becoming a standard. Just bear with me.

Chapter 54: Breaking the Shadows

All lights cast shadows  
But shadows are not darkness  
A memory of light  
A mirror of its touch  
If one only learns to see it

It was late in the evening on Palaven when Solana Vakarian received a video-chat request from her brother. That hadn't happened in so long that she knew before she even answered he was wanting to talk to all of them, so she called her parents over as she answered. "Well, it's about time you—_what happened_?"

Garrus winced from his seat on deck 1 of the _Normandy_. He had actually forgotten she didn't know about the scars yet. "It's, uh…kind of a long story."

"Could you maybe give your _sister_ the highlights?"

"Let's just say I may have ticked off someone with a rocket launcher."

She groaned, shaking her head. "Honestly, I can't leave you alone for five minutes, let alone two years."

He smirked. "I missed you, too, Sol."

It was about then that Castis came to sit down with Solana and join the call. "Ah. I take it that happened during that 'target practice' you called about."

"…yeah."

"So why exactly haven't you come home yet?"

"Another long story. Had some business to take care of that, suffice to say, had to do with the Reapers."

Solana perked up when she heard that. "They're not already coming, are they?"

"Not yet. Why, is the hierarchy still not listening?"

Castis sighed. "They've taken a few precautions to bolster defenses and build up supplies, but they're drawing the line at evacuation contingencies. Not enough proof."

Garrus was starting to wish he had been recording the entire Collector base assault to send in as evidence, but it wouldn't have made a difference.

Before Castis could say any more, he turned to bring his wife over.

Garrus didn't bother repressing the concern with which he looked at her. "Mom. Are you OK?"

She sighed, waving him off. "I'm fine, Garrus. Some days are worse than others. You didn't call just to check in on me, did you? I want to hear how you're doing."

He couldn't help a smile as he saw his opportunity. "Well, actually…I'm with someone who wanted to talk to you." So he nodded her over.

One might thought the Vakarians' end of the line had frozen. The last thing they had expected to see was their semi-adopted human refugee sitting down beside Garrus. It was unmistakably her, the same sapphire eyes, the same artistic gaze and turian composure, the same soft brown hair draped over her left shoulder and right eye. Solana had known about this from receiving that message, but it was only now she saw the proof that she truly allowed herself to believe it. She only wished it wasn't a video call and that they were really reunited so she could hug her again.

The matron of the Vakarian family didn't react quite so well. "Castis, it's happening again—!"

"No," Castis quickly calmed her down, "I see her, too. She's…_how_?!"

Terra hesitated to explain. "I don't suppose 'long story' would cut it a third time?"

Solana just barely suppressed her laughter. "I guess we should've known dying would only slow you down."

Terra smiled. "I'm an honorary turian, aren't I?"

The conversation was limited to the simplest of reunions for now. They'd save the rest for when they were able to talk in person again, which Terra and Garrus both promised would be soon now that they were free to go back to Palaven. Well…once the ship was repaired from the recent crash and all, for which Joker was already taking them back to the Citadel.

However, there was one piece of news Terra couldn't wait that long to give them. She smiled as she took Garrus' hand. "You should know…we're mates now."

Solana, having already heard this, smiled to see it was true and accepted. Castis was stunned at first but seemed to realize it was a long time coming.

It was Garrus' mother who drew the most joy from the pronouncement. "You are. That's…I always knew you two were made for each other. I should've known…"

Terra grinned brighter. "We all should've."

"I'm very happy for you."

Terra agreed, leaning into Garrus as he placed his other hand on her arm.

It was only a matter of seconds after this, though, before she started weakening and nearly fainted, which isn't easy for turians to do.

Garrus, naturally, turned all his concerned attention to this, Terra reflecting it. "Mom?"

"I'm fine," she shook it off.

Castis was quick to step in, letting her lean on him. "It's getting late, we'll talk to you later." With that, he helped his wife to her feet and into the next room to lie down.

Once they were gone, Terra turned to Solana. "Sol, be honest with us. Is she OK?"

Solana sighed sadly. "Like she said, some days are better than others. You caught her at a good time, just dizziness and occasionally her mind playing tricks on her. Sometimes, there's mood swings and memory lapses or…even trouble breathing." She shook her head. "The treatments are buying her time, but we're running out of both."

"And you're calling us the second anything changes, _right_?"

Solana smirked. "Kind of the plan, yeah. Just like you two will be calling the second _this_ goes anywhere."

Terra smirked back, glancing at Garrus. "There's not much further it can go."

"Ugh. What was that human term? 'TMI'?"

Garrus gave his sister a look. "_We'll talk to you later, Sol._"

"I'm sure." With a knowing glance and a brief wave, she disconnected.

Once the line was clear, Garrus turned to Terra. "Now what?"

She looked down at their intertwined hands. "We've got the night to ourselves."

He smiled. "I get the feeling that'll be happening a lot more now."

He was right, but she did still take the time to check in on everything over the COMMs. The crew were all back at their stations, fixing everything they could before they actually docked on the Citadel. Mordin, in particular, she took the time to talk to but for a different reason than everyone else.

_"Not to worry, Shepard," he told her, "With mission over, can avert more focus to assisting Corpalis research. Results slow but promising."_

Not tremendously good news, but good news all the same. She'd take what she could get.

"You have a lot of faith in that salarian," Garrus smirked after she hung up.

"You have to admit," Terra responded, "he did _a lot _for us the past few weeks."

"Yeah, he really did."

"Plus, we've actually had some really good conversations. He agreed with me that artistic expression is a core pillar of any society, got just as upset about the Collectors losing their culture as he did about the Reapers overwriting their biology." She smirked. "Apparently, he used to perform cross-cultural opera."

Garrus almost started laughing. "You're kidding, right?"

"Hardly. I wish I'd been recording."

He smiled as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer. "We'll have to see if there are still a few ways we can lend him a hand."

She shrugged as she leaned back into his arms. "We can't exactly gather any more Collector tissue samples."

He simply slid his talons across her waist. "We're going after Cerberus now, aren't we? They might have something we could…reuse."

She gave it some thought as his every touch made her breath catch. "Maybe…if…" She finally shoved him. "You're doing it again!"

He smiled, leaning in so close that his mandibles fluttered against her neck as he whispered in her ear "Can you blame me?"

She smiled back, closing her eyes to take in the sound of the voice she loved so well. "No."

It had been such a long day that they wound up asleep in each other's arms not long after, not waking until EDI came over the PA to inform them they were approaching the Citadel. Even then, they stayed tangled up in each other until they were physically forced to separate so they could prepare to leave the deck.

While the crew set to work on finishing all the repairs, Terra said the entire squad could disembark to celebrate their recent victory. She sort of regretted that suggestion as she was struck with visions of Kasumi robbing half the lower Wards, Grunt starting a half dozen bar brawls, and everyone getting away with everything because they were friends with a Spectre, but she shook it off. They weren't children and she wasn't in any position to micromanage them, so she focused on having some time off of her own. She wound up taking three hours to herself—one to speak with Anderson again and give him the good news that the Collectors were dealt with and she had indeed found a swift end to her relationship with Cerberus, one to sit on the Presidium and draw to her heart's content, and one for Garrus to meet her there and kiss her breathless. For the first time since her resurrection, she was _content_.

She was almost sad to head back to the ship until EDI informed her the repairs were as close to finished as they could get from the docks (either 22nd-century technology was better than she realized or she had the best crew in the galaxy, and she was banking on the latter) and that the AI had some news for her.

"What is it, EDI?" she asked once she was back in the CIC.

_"Before I cut off all their access to our systems," EDI answered, "I was able to gather some data from Cerberus' computers. I believe you may find some of it interesting and perhaps even locate a place to begin disabling their operations."_

Terra was really starting to get attached to this AI. "EDI, I can never thank you enough." She started going through the data almost immediately, but it was a lot of information to sort through. She finally resorted to sitting down at the galaxy map, leaning back against the railing as she sifted through the intel.

Garrus smirked when he found her there. "This where you go to unwind now?"

Terra smirked back, glancing between the rails at the map. "Maybe I should. Might even try drawing the map for myself. But sadly, no, I happen to be working again." She showed him the data, telling him what EDI had said.

Curious, he looked it over for himself. "Wait a minute. Look at this." He pointed out one data file in particular.

"Look at what? It's encrypted."

He sighed, decrypting it for her to show her what it was.

Her eyes widened when she realized… "Is that—?!"

"An intercepted communication between Shadow Broker agents? Yes, I believe it is."

Terra turned to the terminal by the elevator. "EDI, didn't Cerberus' network think Liara was working with the Broker?"

_"Yes," EDI answered, "However, further intelligence following your meeting on Ilium suggests she may be actively working _against_ him. In either case, she would likely be interested to know that Cerberus intercepted this message."_

Seeing where this was going, Terra made an executive decision. This data was likely too sensitive to send over an extranet message, so it was time to talk to Liara in person again. "Joker! Set a course for Ilium!"

During the longer-than-usual preflight checks, Terra felt herself getting more excited at the prospect of seeing Liara again. Garrus stayed right there with her, though she couldn't tell if he was equally excited or just delighting in hers and standing by to contain her. Suspecting the second, she told him she wasn't Grunt and he didn't have to babysit her, to which he reminded her that she had willfully and aloud described the Collector base's explosion as "a glorious conflagration." The fact that she stood by the statement and specifically by its wording was just one reason he so admired her.

Upon hearing they were approaching Ilium to see Liara, Tali was the first to get ready. Terra and Garrus met her at the airlock when they docked, the three of them heading through the trading floors together. Given the way everything else was going, Terra smiled at the thought that this would be something like a crew reunion.

It started out that way. Liara was definitely happy to see all three of them. "What are you doing back here, Shepard? Don't you have a mission to complete?"

Terra smirked. "We kind of already did. I guess word hasn't quite gotten around yet."

Liara smiled. "So the Collectors are done for. I see I was right not to doubt you."

"As to why we're here…" Terra pulled out the datapad they had loaded their intel onto. "EDI managed to mine a few things from Cerberus' network. We found something about the Shadow Broker."

Liara perked up immediately. "You did? Let me see!" She pounced on the datapad like she once would've pounced on a Prothean artifact, scrolling through it at a pace few could match. "Intercepted communications…some notes as to the location…and…" She froze when she reached the last piece of the data, finding it was an image of a drell. "…it's about Feron. He's still alive!"

"Feron?" Terra asked, "Who's Feron?"

"He's…a friend. He…" Liara hesitated, but she knew better than to withhold information from the commander. So with a regretful sigh, she admitted it: "He helped me recover your body from the Shadow Broker."

Terra could tell without looking that Garrus and Tali were both stunned silent to hear this. She would've followed suit had curiosity not gotten the best of her. "What? What did the Shadow Broker want with my corpse?"

"He was going to sell it to the Collectors. Feron and I stopped him. …Feron sacrificed himself to make sure I escaped with you."

"Wait, but…if _you_ rescued me, how did I end up with _Cerberus_?"

Liara's reaction to the question made it obvious what the answer was. She could clearly see Terra attempting to deny it, though, so she again forced herself to confess what she'd been hiding. "They contacted me. They said they could bring you back. …so I gave you to them."

Now Terra was the one stunned silent, falling back into the chair by Liara's desk as she attempted to process this, and _Garrus_ was the one who reacted verbally. His reaction wasn't so much curious as incensed. "You did _what_?!"

Liara flinched back, clearly having expected this. "I couldn't just give up on her! You're telling me you wouldn't have done the same?!"

"I don't know! But that doesn't mean handing her over to _Cerberus_ was OK!"

"The chances were so slim, I didn't think—!"

"Liara!" Terra finally cut back in, holding Garrus back, "I'm not mad at you."

Liara simply looked at her. "You're not?"

"No. You were just trying to look out for me. I can't blame you for being desperate." She glanced briefly between Liara, Garrus, and Tali, fighting the part of her that dared to imagine what she might do had she lost any of them. "I know I would've been."

Liara still shrunk back, but this time was clearly more from guilt than from their reaction. "I didn't know if you'd think even speaking to them was a betrayal or…" Her eyes fell briefly on Terra's necklace before she pushed the thought away entirely. "What's done is done, I suppose."

Garrus nodded. "Yeah."

With the argument over, Liara turned back to the datapad. "I've spent two years trying to avenge Feron, to make the Shadow Broker pay for what he tried to do to you. Now I have the chance to turn it into a rescue." She finally took the datapad in hand and turned to go. "I need to go over this, talk to some of my contacts…"

"Let us help," Terra quickly stood up, "We'll meet up at your place, go from there when you've found something."

Liara nodded. "Yes. Hopefully, we can follow this right to the Broker himself. …thank you, Shepard." Before she could stumble again, she raced out.

Tali watched her go. "…she's changed. I guess now we know why."

Terra shook her head. "I should never have died."

Garrus smirked. "That we _all_ can agree on."

While they were giving Liara time to talk to her contacts, they took the rare opportunity to stroll through the port. Tali, enjoying the chance to see one of the worlds that was so prejudiced as to turn away the Migrant Fleet, started browsing through some of the stalls and admiring the scenery. Terra found a corner overlooking the cityscape and started capturing the horizon in her sketchbook. Garrus found the opposite corner and started admiring her. She didn't seem to notice the way he was watching her, so caught up in her work. He drew the same calming, self-assuring serenity from the sight of her that she did from a piece of music. She was always on his mind, permeating his thoughts, reminding him who he belonged to and with. Seeing her now, as subtly radiant as the sky she was attempting to recreate, he knew beyond all doubt that he loved her.

After Terra finished, she put her sketchbook away and called Garrus and Tali over to head on their way to Liara's apartment. Before they even arrived, Terra started to get that unmistakable feeling in her bones that something was about to go horribly wrong. As usual, she was correct on that count, though the odds were usually in her favor when it came to that particular instinct. Liara wasn't there. The police were.

And so was someone else. "Someone tried to kill your friend, Commander Shepard." An asari stepped down from the upper level and shooed out the cops. "Tela Vasir, Special Tactics and Recon."

Terra looked at her in astonishment. "A Spectre?" She hadn't expected to see any this close to the border of the Terminus Systems. She had barely met any of her fellow Spectre operatives unless she counted Saren. She couldn't deny she was excited at the prospect of working with one, but that feeling was vastly undermined by her worry for Liara. There was no doubt who had set up this hit on her. How had the Shadow Broker found out she was onto him when she'd only had the data for three hours?

Well, beyond the obvious answer of "Because he's the Shadow Broker."

Liara had known Terra was on her way, so she had to have left a message of some sort. The four of them carefully searched the whole apartment for some sign of one. Terra was the one who found a clue when she went to the upper level. On her bedside table, Liara had reverently placed a framed image of the _Normandy SR-1_ in flight. Terra couldn't help but pick up the frame to look at the picture, causing it to trigger a biometric scan and suddenly change to an image of a Prothean dig site. So Terra searched around a Prothean artifact Liara had placed in a glass case and found a data disc inside, containing a video call between Liara and the contact she had spoken with. The call said exactly where she was going—the Drakon Trade Center. Terra only needed to hear that to lead them all racing back to the skycar. Liara was in danger, and Terra was _not_ losing another friend.

So she was rightly panicked when, within seconds of their arrival, the entire trade center exploded.

Vasir took the skycar up to the highest level while Terra, Garrus, and Tali moved in from the ground floor. All four of them were intent on searching the building for some sign of Liara or her contact. Terra was struggling every moment with the urge not to actually panic, telling herself Liara would have made it no matter how many casualties they passed. She set aside the struggle temporarily when they ran into opposition. The mercs were well-equipped and had a clear advantage in numbers, but they were nothing compared to the Collectors. Terra, Garrus, and Tali tore through them in mere moments. Even still, they showed up a few seconds too late to save Liara's contact, Vasir having already dispatched the merc responsible.

"Guess we're at a dead end," Terra groaned, shaking her head.

"Speaking of which," Vasir asked, "did you find your friend's body?"

"You mean this body?!" All eyes turned to see Liara at the end of the room, arming a gun and aiming at Vasir.

"Liara!" Terra quickly stepped in, relieved and delighted to see her friend unharmed. Then she just barely caught herself from stepping into the line of fire and glanced in confusion between Liara and Vasir. "…something I should know?"

"This is the woman that tried to kill me," Liara answered.

Wow, Terra could not catch a break lately.

Vasir tried to talk them down, but Liara knew better. So Vasir showed her true colors and struck first, Liara just barely managing to shield them from the attack. Terra, upon seeing Vasir trying to run, raced over to jump the asari and wound up tackling her for the entire drop from the third story window, a scuffle Vasir finally managed to kick her out of, throwing her to the ground. Liara quickly jumped down behind them and chased Vasir out. Completely walking past Terra as she lied there in the middle of a pile of broken glass.

"I'm fine, thanks for asking," Terra shook her head. Garrus and Tali were right behind her, helping her back to her feet just as more of the mercs showed up. Terra was in a hurry now, not letting the mercs slow her down as she followed Liara's trail all the way outside to a skycar. Vasir just barely managed to escape before they caught up to her, so Liara readied another skycar for them to jump into. Terra quickly hopped in the driver's seat, letting Garrus and Tali climb in the back before setting out. Terra couldn't exactly say she'd done a high-speed chase like this before, but she got the hang of it fairly quickly, dodging and weaving around the Ilium traffic to keep up with their target. She had to sacrifice maneuverability for the speed to stay right on Vasir's tail, though, which the asari was clearly taking advantage of.

"Wait, we're not following her into that construction site, are—?" Liara started. Then, of course, they followed her into the construction site. "Oh, goddess…"

"You're the one who let Terra drive," Garrus shook his head.

"What?" Terra asked.

"Nothing!"

"Watch out!" Liara called as their path diverged into a tunnel, "She's got reinforcements!"

Terra just barely ducked under the gunfire to make the turn into the tunnel. "What kind of weapons does this thing have?"

"It's a taxi! It has a fare meter!"

Terra rolled her eyes. "We couldn't snatch one of the police cars?"

Liara tensed as she saw the Broker cars come back and open fire again. "Truck."

"I see it."

"TRUCK!"

"I SEE IT!" Terra waited until the last second to literally do a barrel roll and flip over the truck before hurrying right back into the chase. She took a moment to take pride in her aerial prowess and enjoy the thrill of the moment.

Which Tali quickly took note of as she attempted to shake off the feeling that the planet was turning upside-down. "You're _enjoying _this?!"

"Watch out!" Liara called as they came back into open space, "She's dropping proximity mines!"

"I noticed!" Terra said as she ducked around one.

"Well, don't slow down! You're losing her! Around that corner!"

"Do you wanna take the wheel?!" Before Liara could retort, Terra dove around another mine and got back on Vasir's trail…right into rush hour traffic.

"Oh, Keelah," Tali winced, "A head-on collision at this speed…"

"We'll be fine!"

"_Truck_!" Liara shouted.

"AGAIN?!" Terra growled to herself in sheer annoyance as she avoided the crashing vehicle. "Alright, that does it! Everyone hang on!" So she caught back up with Vasir…and rammed into her. Strangely, _this_ was the behavior that the others decided not to audibly object to.

Also strangely, it was the one that proved effective, sending the asari tumbling down onto the roof of a hotel.

Terra landed the skycar close by and led her three companions into the battle against the mercs that came to support Vasir's withdrawal. Against four of the _Normady_ crewmen, the mercs didn't stand a chance and barely slowed them down. In no time at all, they had caught up with the now-injured Spectre.

So Vasir reacted, taking a hostage. "All you had to do was walk away. Not it gets ugly."

The hostage was crying when the gun turned to her. "Please. I have a son."

"A son? I hope he gets to see you again. I hear losing a parent is just horrific for children. Scars them for life."

Terra could attest to that. She wasn't letting it happen. Signaling Liara behind her back, she stepped up to take action. "Is that it?"

Vasir looked at her in confusion. "What?"

"Vasir, I was trained as a turian. They're all about sacrifice for the greater good. I sacrificed hundreds of humans to save the _Destiny Ascension_—I unleashed the rachni on the galaxy! If you think you can manipulate me just by taking a sad, lonely hostage, you're gravely mistaken."

Vasir tried to stay in control, but she flinched. "You're bluffing."

"Yes, she is!" Liara made her move, biotics flinging a table at Vasir and knocking her off her feet to let the hostage run free.

All that was left was Vasir herself. It was easy to see how she'd become a Spectre, because she fought well even against the four of them and was definitely one of the most powerful biotics Terra had ever seen. Every time they had a clear shot, she charged across the battlefield and sent out bursts of her power to throw them off their feet or disable their shields. Liara was able to warp her barrier and stagger her long enough for the others to get a shot in, but it barely slowed her down. Of course, when the asari did finally manage to get a lucky shot on Terra, she learned why that was a bad idea. Liara and Tali reacted violently, yes, but it was nothing compared to how Garrus lashed out. Turians were territorial, after all, and did have talons. He pounced on her like a feral cat, tearing her armor open without even touching his gun. She just barely managed to throw him off before he tore into her flesh, but doing that led to an equal reaction from Terra. Five shotgun rounds and Vasir collapsed.

While Liara retrieved the data disc, Vasir made use of her last few moments to glare at Terra. "You're dead! The Shadow Broker's been in power for decades! He's stronger than anything you've ever faced."

_You clearly didn't see Sovereign,_ Terra wanted to retort, but she settled for the similarly biting "Is that why you sold out the Council to work for him?"

"You think I betrayed the Council?! Like Saren?! The Broker's given me intel that saved lives and kept the Citadel safe. If he needs a few people to disappear in return, so be it."

"Spectres don't blow up buildings full of innocent people!"

"Sure we do. We get our hands dirty so the Council doesn't have to. Besides, I heard a few things about you and Cerberus."

Terra immediately knelt down to glare at Vasir with all the ferocity of a turian. "I have nothing to do with those monsters. As soon as I'm done with your boss, I'm coming for them."

Vasir scoffed. "Spoken like a true human. You…you'll never…" Before she could finish, her wounds got the better of her.

It didn't matter what she would've said, Terra told herself. It didn't matter what anyone thought of her. It only mattered what she did.

Liara was uncharacteristically quiet when they brought her back to the _Normandy_ with them and let her set their next course with the data she'd recovered. That was partly because of the small argument she'd had with Terra on the way back to the ship that Garrus and Tali had definitely not listened in on so don't ask. Liara had changed while Terra was gone and, while she couldn't blame her, Terra didn't like it. In a way, it reminded her of the scars from Garrus' betrayal and how it had affected him. Liara was colder, casually and callously disregarding those in her path for the sake of her goal in a way that she would have shuddered to even consider two years ago. Terra could only hope that finishing this mission would help her friend like it had her mate.

They arrived at the Shadow Broker's base in a few hours, finding it was a ship in the middle of a constant thunderstorm. Charming. Terra, Liara, and Garrus got into the shuttle and moved in together, landing at one end of the ship and fighting their way up to the other. It was hard to see clearly between their helmets and the storm—it would've been hard to even stand up straight in the winds had they not had mag-boots to lean on—but the helpfully-positioned and easily-blown-up lightning capacitors helped quickly and without difficulty disable any opposition they came across. It was only when they reached the end and found that the door to actually enter the ship was sealed that they had to bunker down, Liara deploying a bypass program to override the lock.

"How long is that going to take?" Terra asked as they prepared for the oncoming assault.

"It's illegal even on Ilium," Liara answered, "It didn't exactly come with a manual."

"But you tested it, right?" Garrus asked.

"Watch out, they're coming from the right!"

"_Tell me you tested it_!"

"Can't talk now!"

The first wave was straightforward enough. The second was slightly harder but still no trouble for them. The third would have given them some trouble had Liara not been able to disable several of them with a well-placed singularity that she was then able to detonate with a warp, leaving the rest for Terra and Garrus to simply snipe down.

"Their attacks are disorganized," Liara noted, "They'd be more effective if they all attacked at once."

"Please don't give the mercs ideas!" Terra snapped.

They kept their eyes on the door until the fourth wave arrived, finding that the bypass was nearing completion now. So, naturally, it was when the fifth and final wave came around that things got tricky.

"This last wave looks like a big one!" Liara warned.

"You just had to give them tactical advice!" Terra sneered.

"Well, now there will be fewer to deal with inside."

"Yeah!" Garrus scoffed, "Keep dreaming, T'Soni!"

They fought harder, making use of all the tactics they had and slowly withdrawing to the door. When it finally opened, they all three raced through and closed it behind them to cut off the fight. And, immediately after they did so, a squad of mercs emerged at the other end of the entrance hall and opened fire on them.

"There's still more?!" Liara cried as they ducked behind cover, "How many guards does the Shadow Broker have?!"

"Told you," Garrus shook his head before sniping down their opponents to clear the way.

The halls were too tight to attempt flanking the mercs that came at them next, but there was still enough cover for them to keep the fire they took limited to their shields. Liara was still able to immobilize the targets so Terra and Garrus could easily remove them, so it didn't take long for them to get around to the control room.

And it was there that they found Feron. Liara instantly raced to the control panel. "Feron!"

The drell looked up at her from his cell. "Liara?"

"Hold tight, Feron, we're getting you out of there!" She quickly started putting in the release command.

"No, wait—!" Before he could warn her, the signal went through and the chair shocked him.

Liara withdrew, sorrow in her eyes. "Feron…"

Terra stepped up, appalled. "What are they trying to do to you?!"

Feron shook it off as best he could. "This chair is linked to the Broker's info network. You'd have to cut the power to release the locks. Pull me out now and my brain cooks."

"Then we're going after the Broker. Time to end this."

Liara agreed. "Don't worry, Feron, we're coming back for you."

The Broker's office was around the corner and down the hall. Not much opposition remained in their path. It was down to them and the Broker himself. So they entered the arena.

There sat the Broker, a large creature unlike anything they'd seen before, safe in his titular shadows. "Here for the drell? Reckless, even for you, commander."

Terra scoffed. "Blowing up that trade center on Ilium wasn't exactly subtle."

"A necessary risk."

"No, it wasn't!" Liara snapped, "Neither was caging Feron for two years!"

"You had to know we'd come after you for that," Terra agreed, "And for working with the Collectors."

"It was a mutually beneficial partnership. Fortunately, the _Normandy_'s IFF will allow me to salvage the remains of their base."

Terra was about to exclaim "over my dead body," but it struck her as too ironic.

The Broker glanced at Liara. "You travel with fascinating companions, doctor." Then his gaze turned exclusively to Garrus. "Your friend's bounty is unclaimed."

Forget irony. Terra immediately extricated herself between Garrus and the Broker. "You lay so much as one finger on him or my ship and I'll yank all those teeth out one by one!"

"Such attachment. Is it truly because you love him or simply because you're only a scared little orphan without him?"

Garrus stepped up with a growl, ready to swap places with Terra the second it was clear he needed to. "Mess with her and I'll yank out something a bit more vital than those teeth!"

"Your threats are pointless. I know your every secret while you fumble in the dark."

"Oh, really?" Liara cut back in, "You're a yahg, a pre-spaceflight species quarantined to their home-world for massacring the Council's first contact teams. This base is older than your planet's discovery, which means you probably killed the last Shadow Broker and assumed his title for yourself. He probably took you in because he wanted a slave…_or a pet_. How am I doing?"

The Shadow Broker took a few seconds to glower at her. Then he stood up to his full towering height and, with a ferocious growl, punched his desk in two and threw one half straight at them.

Terra only had time to react on pure instinct. And, like always, her instinct reached for her mate. So she grabbed hold of Garrus and dove out of the way, only noticing after they had safely escaped the assault that he had been reaching to do the same for her and that Liara had managed to withstand it through the use of a hastily deployed biotic barrier.

Before they were even back on their feet, the Broker drew his weapon and the fight was on.

Terra quickly pulled Garrus behind a pillar while Liara took cover on the other side of the room. "Are you OK?"

"I'm fine," he answered. Then he ducked as a bullet whizzed around the pillar and past his ear. "For now."

"We need to take this guy down fast."

Liara agreed, sending out a warp attack to weaken the Broker's armor. It staggered him just enough that he had to stop firing for a moment, allowing Terra and Garrus to lay into him with their assault rifles and Liara to make use of her pistol. The Broker finally took a step back and activated a sort of barrier, all the gunfire headed his way afterwards bouncing off. Terra, however, saw a fatal flaw in the protection: he couldn't move while it was up. So she stowed her rifle and leaped in to punch him, making use of cybernetic strength. He did recoil from the hit, but then he raised a shield and used it to throw her back into the nearest pillar. Garrus saw this and saw the gun coming back up trained on her while she was dazed. So he moved in, a few well-placed shots around the shield doing enough damage to draw the Broker's attention. Which, in turn, left his back exposed to another warp from Liara that wore down the rest of his armor. Terra recovered just in time for him to raise the shield again, giving her another chance to punch him and even whack him with the butt of her rifle. Once again, he pushed her aside, this time throwing her into Liara.

From the floor, though, Liara saw something… "If you can get him to put up that shield again," she whispered to Terra while Garrus was covering them, "I have an idea."

Terra nodded discreetly before readying her rifle and diving back in. While Liara snuck around the side out of sight, Terra opened fire with incendiary rounds, Garrus at her side with armor-piercing shots. They both had to duck down when the Broker opened fire again, but that gave Garrus time to ready a concussive round. When next he had an opening, he leaned over to fire the shot and the Broker was again staggered, his shield out from in front of him for all of three seconds, more than enough time for Terra to empty an entire clip on him. Once they had worn him down, he traded his physical shield for the barrier and…

"LIARA, NOW!" Terra called.

Too late, the Broker saw Liara standing off to the side, seizing hold of the skylight overhead with her biotics and shattering it. As the glass crashed down, the barrier was fully exposed to an entire sky's worth of lightning. The Broker inside the barrier was vaporized in seconds.

Once it was over, Liara went over to check on Terra and Garrus, still panting from the effort of her final strike. When she saw they were both OK (and that, even if they weren't, they had her covered from checking on each other), she went over to cut the power long enough for Feron to escape. Almost immediately after it came back online, the Broker's network came alive with COMM signals from agents across the galaxy. Liara stared at the signals in panic, sure that they were closed in, sure that…that…

…sure of what she had to do.

So Liara stepped up to the COMM terminal, accessed the Broker's ID-disguised line, and spoke for all to hear: "This is the Shadow Broker."

Those were the last words Terra expected to hear her friend say. She stared at the asari in shock as she assumed her new title, not even noticing how Garrus was reacting. It was only when she heard Feron hobbling into the room and also coming to the shocked realization that Liara was now the Shadow Broker that Terra brought herself to say something. "Liara, are you sure this is a good idea?"

"If I don't, we lose this entire network," Liara stated, "And with it, I can…I can give you…" All of a sudden, the weight of her decision and everything that had led up to it crashed in on her, tears forming in her eyes that she quickly turned aside to hide. "…I can…"

"I'll…" Feron said hesitantly, "…go start on the repairs."

Terra turned to Garrus, nodding to him to let him know she would take care of Liara from here. Once Garrus had nodded back and turned to help Feron out, she stepped over to hug Liara without a word.

Liara accepted the embrace, leaning on her friend for strength. "I…I spent two years mourning you and Feron…and now I've got you both back…"

"I'm here for you, Liara," Terra assured her, "No matter what."

Liara clung to those words. Terra took a moment to comfort her as she slowly came to terms with how much her life had changed in the past hour, as she settled into her new position. With a final promise to keep in contact, she watched as Terra turned to leave the ship. Liara couldn't help but watch her go, watch as she found Garrus waiting for her outside and they walked off hand-in-hand without even noticing, as if that was their natural position. As if they were simply made to be together. Liara smiled, knowing her efforts to restore her fallen commander had all been worth it. "Thank you, Terra. For everything."


	55. Without

Chapter 55: Without

Without strength  
Without hope  
Without a guiding light  
You are never without me

Tellingly, the _Normandy_ didn't actually leave Hagalaz for nearly two days. The entire crew learned why when Liara finally had enough time to set aside the data for a moment and come aboard. Terra had invited her and Tali was delighted to give her a tour of the ship. The tour ended on deck 1, where Liara found Terra waiting to spend some time with her. It wasn't the same as the SR-1, but it meant the world to Liara to come back to the ship that had so changed her life.

Terra was just happy to have another friend well and truly back in her life. It wasn't quite the same since Liara wasn't sticking around, but she promised to be more in contact from this point onward and she did actually seem a lot more like herself now that the Shadow Broker was gone, even if she had grown up from the events of the past two years. Terra knew better than to regret that, though. They all had.

"So how are you doing, Shepard?" Liara asked, "I mean really, not what you tell your squad to keep morale up."

Liara had always had a certain way of seeing through her, even if not as well as Garrus. The truth was that she was leaning on Garrus in her rare moments of weakness, so she could answer Liara honestly when she said "I'm hopeful. We crushed Sovereign, we beat the Collectors on their home turf…" She sighed. "But there's a lot of Reapers out there and no one's ready to believe we need to fight."

Liara nodded. "It's hard to believe. But you're right to have faith in your crew's abilities. Under your leadership, they've accomplished the impossible."

Terra smiled. "The robo-squids certainly can't call us young and primitive anymore."

"'Young'? You know I'm 108 now. 109 in a couple of months."

"Ah. I should get you something nice."

Liara smiled. "You're alive again. I have everything I want."

Terra was glad to hear that. It was nice to know she had friends she could rely on, who needed her as much as she needed them, who would never give up on her.

"So tell me what you want. What are you fighting for? For peace? For honor?" She gave the commander a knowing smirk. "For Garrus?"

Terra shook her head. "All of the above, actually. I want what's best for the galaxy…" Her hand reached up to finger her necklace. "…and I love him. I want to make up for the time we lost, to give him better."

"A worthy endeavor, I'd say." She rested a friendly hand on Terra's shoulder. "I hope you two find happiness."

Terra simply nodded. They had already found happiness simply from being together. It was a happy ending she was praying for now.

Liara finally sighed. "I should head back to my ship. But thanks for inviting me up, Terra."

Terra hugged her. "Come back soon."

Liara made her way back down to the airlock on deck 2. To her surprise, Garrus was waiting in the CIC, leaning against Terra's terminal. "You were waiting just to see me off?"

Garrus smirked as he followed her across the bridge. "Sort of. I needed to ask you something."

Liara gave him a curious look as they reached the relative privacy of the airlock. "About what?"

"…why didn't you tell me you were trying to bring her back?"

Oh. She should've seen this coming. If she didn't know him as well as she did, she would worry how he would take the answer. But she didn't. So she gave it: "When it was just a matter of reclaiming her body, I meant to, but you were still so upset that I didn't want to bother you until I had her trail. Then Cerberus got involved and talked of restoring her and…it was a long shot. I didn't want to give you false hope. …I was afraid you would think I was defiling her memory for trying."

Oh. He certainly couldn't fault her reasoning or blame her for having it. They all knew how much Terra had meant to him, how he had fallen apart after losing her over Alchera. But the real question was…how _would_ he have reacted? "Liara, we're friends. You care about her almost as much as I do. I know you wouldn't do that." As if to drive his point home, the elevator across the deck sounded Terra's arrival in the CIC. He watched from a distance as she checked her terminal to start looking for their next mission. "There isn't a thing I wouldn't do for her. I would've taken on every Reaper in dark space for the chance to save her."

Liara didn't doubt it. When he said it like that, she almost wished she had included him, if only so he might have made the difference that saved Feron from all he suffered for his help. But even more so, one thought occurred to her that made her smile.

He noticed. "What?"

"Nothing, it's just…she deserves someone who loves her enough to try. She's very lucky to have you. And I hope she always will."

He looked over to where Terra was taking her position at the galaxy map, smiling at the sight of his human standing where she belonged. "She will. Always."

Liara smiled brighter to know it was true. "Good. Stay safe out there, Garrus."

He nodded. "You, too, Liara."

Once Liara was back at her new station, Joker started taking them back towards the nearest relay. The whole way there, Terra attempted to find them a new destination. She didn't have enough to go on to start hunting Cerberus outright. It certainly didn't help matters that, even though she had _been there_, Miranda didn't actually know where Cerberus' HQ, Chronos Station, was. Now that she was cut off from Cerberus' network, she barely know anything about their operations. The Cerberus intel was getting scant by now, too. However, after a few scans of her own, EDI was at least able to point them to a Cerberus facility that seemed to be offline even though it was running some secret project. An easy enough first target.

Right, because things were _ever_ easy for them.

While the _Normandy_ was on route to Aite, Terra took the time to check in on the crew again, trading a few brief but friendly conversations with her squad and one exact-opposite-of-brief "conversation" with Garrus. When Joker informed her they were entering the Typhon system, she headed to the armory with Garrus and Legion to gear up, cautioning them both that she had no idea what to expect.

She really didn't. Even after they landed and saw how bad it was, she couldn't have predicted how things were about to go down.

For starters, all the Cerberus staff but one doctor were dead. Admittedly, not a good sign. Then there was the geth everywhere that Legion informed them weren't acting normally and attacked even him on sight. Also not a good sign. And to top it all off, there was the fact that some strange computer function they could only assume was some sort of AI was taking over all the equipment and screaming at them down every hall. That was straight up just a bad sign. Terra did briefly consider entertaining the possibility of leaving this mess to sort itself out since most of the Cerberus personnel were already dead anyway, but the "AI" was planning to upload itself off-world and spread this chaos through the galaxy, so she figured the best thing they could do was shut the place down and _then_ decide what to do about this Dr. Archer character leading them through the place. She knew the second she laid eyes on the guy that she didn't trust him, but since she couldn't tell if that was genuinely her instincts going off or just her general distrust of all things Cerberus and how stupid the plans for this place had originally been, she held back for now.

Within 20 minutes, she was kicking herself for that. This entire facility and all four of its stations were overrun with geth and mechs seemingly programmed solely to try tearing any intruders limb from limb. Thankfully, Garrus was able to overload most all of them to disable them for Terra to take down or Legion to hack. Not to mention all three of them were snipers and these synthetics were, in the end, no real match for them. It wasn't an easy task to shut down the two stations maintaining the lockdown on the third, but it was nothing they couldn't handle.

It was when they actually got to the third station that it became something to worry about. From the moment they stepped into the station, things started stacking up against them. Doors shuffling their locks to force them down a certain path. Elevators not accessing their floor, arriving full of geth, and then crashing on them. And, just to top it all off, the route forward was cut off in favor of a room with, you guessed it, a big red button.

Terra, for obvious reasons, had never trusted big red buttons. "Alright, everyone get ready. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if this button summoned a Reaper." Garrus and Legion got in position to watch her back, so she hesitantly pressed the button. What followed felt like an electric shock. She stumbled back, almost collapsing on the rail she was standing beside.

Garrus immediately took notice. "Terra? What's wrong?"

"Shepard-Commander," Legion spoke up, "we detect abnormal brain activity. Are you still fully functional?"

Terra barely heard what either of them were saying, struggling to get back on her feet and completely collapsing in the hall.

Garrus didn't bother asking questions this time. He just raced over to help her…and ran face-first into the door. As soon as he shook it off and realized what had happened, he started getting frantic, attempting to pry the door open. "Legion!"

Legion came over to hack the lock. "Cannot establish access. Path blocked. Attempting to locate alternate route."

"_Hurry_!" Garrus kept trying the door even when he knew it wasn't opening. Terra needed him and he wasn't letting anything keep him from her.

Terra, on the other hand, began to pull herself together on the other side of the door and saw just what that "shock" had done. Everywhere she looked, she saw wiring and solid light structures and things she didn't even have the technical knowledge to name. What had happened? Had that interface hacked into her cybernetics somehow? She finally took a deep breath to steady herself, drew her weapon, and made her way onwards. She was going to figure this out even if she had to do it alone.

As she made her way deeper, though, her new view of the complex revealed what had really happened here. Dr. Archer had a little brother, David, who suffered from autism but was also a math genius, a combination that made him the perfect brain to establish an interface to "communicate with" the geth (because, in this context, she fully expected that meant "enslave"—somehow, she had found a way to despise Cerberus even more). Just when she thought she was getting answers, the interface in question came alive in the central chamber…and, from the sound of it, was attempting to upload itself _to her ship_. That she wouldn't stand for. Tech might not be her specialty, but she understood shooting, so she started shooting down the conduits before they could establish any connection and gunning down the VI core whenever it was exposed as well as any hacked geth that attempted to get in her way. It was a long, arduous task that she nearly used up all her ammo to compete, but she managed it. And with a final burst of light, the entire system collapsed under her last volley of fire.

She fell back to rest against a pillar as the effect on her vision slowly disabled. As it faded, she realized that her hearing must have been affected as well because she only now realized that her COMM was active with the voice of a certain panicked turian. "Garrus?"

_He calmed down when he heard her voice again. "Terra. Are you OK?"_

She stowed her weapon and attempted to stand up straight. "I think so."

_"I don't know what you just did, but Legion's got the doors open and it's locked in on your signal. We're catching up."_

"Alright. I'll just…wait here." So she took a moment to finish recovering before turning to inspect the area and make sure it was really clear. What she saw made her freeze so sharply and so long that she didn't even notice when Garrus and Legion did finally come up behind her.

"Wait!" Dr. Archer himself ran in (how he got down there so fast, she didn't want to know), "Commander, don't do anything rash—"

That was all she needed to hear to whirl around and punch him in the nose with such force that he fell flat on the floor, prompting Garrus to doing the smart thing and remove himself and Legion from the radius of her ire. "'Rash'?! Like torturing your own brother in a test chamber?! I should hang you off the side of the station for this!"

"I know," the doctor tried to defend himself as he struggled back to his feet, "this looks bad—" Terra scoffed at him, rolling her eyes at the understatement. "—but I assure you I can explain."

"Doctor, you're even more deranged than I think you are if you actually believe I want to hear one word you have to say. Legion, get him out of there!"

"NO! Leave him!" Archer pulled a gun on her the second he saw the geth start to move in. "He's too valuable!"

Garrus was instantly prepared to charge in and tackle the guy for even daring to threaten his mate, but she removed the need for it by kicking the doctor in the shin and disarming him before she had even turned to face him. Based on the look in her eyes, Garrus was surprised she didn't shoot him in the other leg rather than unload the gun, yet she managed to show the same restraint she had asked of him on the hunt for Sidonis.

Archer seemed to realize he was defeated and there was no point in pretending otherwise, shrinking back before she could attempt to "subdue" him again. "…where are you taking him?"

Terra didn't want to even give him the satisfaction of an answer, but this was still his brother they were talking about. She knew she would've killed to know where Violet had gone. "Grissom Academy. They can help special cases like David…minus the exploitation." Without looking at the doctor and setting herself off again, she went over to help Legion and give Joker a call to explain what they were doing.

Garrus watched Archer forlornly exit the chamber. Then he watched Terra. He knew her well enough to know why this had hit her so hard. Her family had been the most important thing in the world to her before the raid, and the thought of someone doing to their own brother what Cerberus had done to her (or something similar, at least) was…what would even be the word for that? Appalling? Ghastly? She was the wordsmith of the two of them and he doubted even she would know how to describe it. He knew she was strong enough to take this once she was certain the poor, abused David was safe, but he still stayed close to her as they made their way back to the ship, waiting to be her source of light again if the weight of this whole incident grew too much for her.

It didn't even occur to them until David was in the med bay and they were on their way to the Petra Nebula that they still didn't have a real target where Cerberus was concerned. Amazingly, Terra didn't even care and just told them that, while clearing up the mess on Aite would be doing the Illusive Man a favor, he'd be hurting from the loss of the entire "Overlord" project and might even take it as a warning. It didn't seem like anyone actually believed that, but they all knew better than to argue with her and agreed that saving David alone had been worth the diversion.

Garrus stayed in the battery for the entire trip to the Academy, but he worked with the door open, casting his gaze back at the mess every few seconds. Terra was sitting there, watching the med bay through the viewing glass, not even sketching or eating. Everyone else seemed convinced she was making sure David wasn't still a threat, staying vigilant for the moment he broke down or freaked out, which she couldn't be blamed for considering what they'd gone through before pulling him out. But Garrus knew Terra well enough to know she was still hung up on what _David_ had gone through, on the side of things she had glimpsed through his attempts to communicate with her, and he knew it had marked her. He'd known she was upset, but the way she was watching the med bay wasn't mortified or morose so much as protective.

Like an older sister.

When the thought suddenly struck him and he realized what was happening, he quickly set aside his work and moved in. He didn't care if she actually wanted to talk right now. If his suspicions were right, she _needed_ to.

She didn't object when he came to sit beside her, but she didn't take her eyes off the med bay to face him. She also didn't say anything, even to acknowledge his presence.

He figured that meant he was safe to start the conversation straight to the point. "Terra, he's not your responsibility."

"I went in to disable the Cerberus facility he was trapped in. If I'd just had EDI scan the data for me to begin with, gone there first instead of going to help Liara—"

"_He's not Violet_."

She lost her voice the second he said her lost sister's name. Hearing it under these circumstances and realizing he was right nearly drove her to tears, but she held back. "I know…but he reminds me of her."

Garrus simply sat there and listened. That was all she needed so far.

Terra sighed, leaning back in her seat. "She was a math genius, too, you know. We didn't make such a big deal out of it because she was a musical prodigy first and brilliant at it. Notes can correspond to numbers, though, so sometimes she made her own fun 'solving' her favorite songs…or Mom's." Thinking back on it made her smile but also threatened her with tears again. "And she was also young, innocent, and taken away to suffer because I couldn't save her in time."

Garrus took action now, wrapping his arm around her to fight off the tears for her. "That's not your fault. There was nothing you could've done for Violet. This, you did everything you could possibly do for."

"And the colonists on Horizon?"

"We've been over that. You saved everyone you could, you avenged the ones you couldn't, the crew is safe…"

She sighed. He was right, but it didn't change that some small part of her felt like she'd failed on at least one of those occasions.

"You're a hero, Terra. That doesn't automatically mean everyone you lose is your fault."

She smirked. "What happened to _me_ telling _you_ that?"

He smirked back. "Someone pretty smart reminded me it doesn't always work that way."

She scoffed. "Smart or just intuitive?"

"No, you're right, I guess _I'm_ the smart one."

She rolled her eyes, giving him a playful shove. "We've been hanging out with each other too long."

When they arrived at the Academy, David was carefully escorted from the ship to the station, following a brief period where he had to again thank Terra for "making it quiet." She merely gave him a supporting smile and said he was free to contact her if he ever needed help again. They would've gone from there and started searching for more Cerberus targets, but one of the Academy staff who came for the transfer told Terra that word had made it to the Alliance of the _Normandy_ coming back into human space and one of the admirals wanted to talk to her. Confused at first, she went up to her cabin to take the call.

Even as Joker was pulling away from the Academy and keeping up the signal Terra was making use of, Garrus wondered what could be going on. The Alliance had barely spoken to her since her return, even after she contacted Anderson, and now admiralty was calling directly to the ship? He wasn't sure what to expect.

So it was no surprise when Terra turned up 15 minutes later to explain it to him. "It was Admiral Hackett." Strange, she didn't seem happy to have gotten a call from one of the superior officers she both liked and respected.

Garrus gave her a curious look. "What did he want?"

"A friend of his was arrested by batarians. He wants me to sneak in and get her out."

"…so we're headed to batarian space now. Great."

"Actually, that…that's kind of the problem."

"What do you mean?"

She sighed hesitantly but resignedly. "…he wants me to go alone."

Her turian didn't exactly take that news well. "What?! Terra, you can't!"

"It's not like it'd be the first time I went without you!"

"Yeah, when you had Samara or half the team behind you! Going in _by yourself_ is—!"

"I _can_ be stealthy, you know. And I stand a better chance of it solo. Besides, according to Hackett, if we are discovered, they might kill her, so I need to move fast."

He couldn't argue with the reasoning, but that didn't mean he liked it.

She took his hand. "I'll be careful. I'm coming back."

So she said. He trusted her to keep her promises, but this was out of her hands.

"Keep the ship safe for me?"

He smiled. "That I can do."

She nodded. "Good." She kissed him while she could. "I won't keep you waiting."

Those words stuck with him the whole way to the Viper Nebula. The truth was it didn't matter if she was gone an hour or a week. It would still feel like a year without her there.


	56. Disavowed

Chapter 56: Disavowed

Hatred is cold  
Love is a flame  
Duty is a pedestal  
Guilt is a chain

Garrus didn't handle it well sitting in the battery alone and waiting for Terra to come back. After only a few hours with no word from her, he started to worry. Half the crew picked up on it and told him she'd be fine because it was _Terra_ and she could handle anything, even coming back to life. It wasn't that he disagreed so much as that it was taking so long. It was because it was Terra that the wait concerned him. Even alone, she should've been able to handle whatever was going on inside of a few hours. She hadn't kept him waiting for contact like this since Elysium. Compounded with that was Terra's order to wait in the neighboring cluster, out of view of the batarians, so that they weren't mistaken for an Alliance ship and fired on. So when he stayed up an hour past lights out with no word from her and the ship still an entire relay jump away (however short a wait that would prove to be when it came down to it), he knew something was wrong. For _two days_, he knew something was wrong.

It was only when Terra actually called them back that he realized how wrong.

The entire crew was wondering why they'd had to flee the system so quickly and why Terra was still alone without the scientist she'd been sent to rescue and why she had gone straight to the med bay without a word to anyone—even _Garrus_. He knew to give her some space, at least while she was being checked over by Chakwas, but he started worrying again when Admiral Hackett himself turned up to talk to her. The admiral left the med bay in less than ten minutes, but Terra stayed there for nearly an hour before she headed up to deck 1. Still alone. Still not talking to anyone. Not even looking at her turian.

That was the last straw where Garrus was concerned. The crew would undoubtedly piece the whole story together by tomorrow, but he wanted to hear it from her. She didn't let him shut her out and he wasn't willing to let her do it to him now. So after giving her five minutes to herself, he took the elevator up to deck 1 and stepped into the short hall between the elevator and her cabin to…to…

He heard it before he even opened the door. The same crying that had drawn him to her 15 years ago. He hadn't heard that in over a decade. Terra never let herself fall apart, not over a mission, no matter how badly it went. It was worse than he thought. He was hesitant to intrude now, but he was committed now and it was likely she needed him. So without even knocking, he stepped in.

Terra was curled up on her bed, crying into her pillow. Terra Shepard wasn't the type to be labeled as delicate or fragile, yet here she was. It wasn't right.

So Garrus moved in to comfort her. "Terra—"

She hadn't known he was there until he said her name. She quickly pulled herself up to a sitting position and attempted to shake the tears, still not looking at him.

That wasn't the reaction he'd been anticipating. Still, he stood firm where he was certain she needed him to, stepping over to sit down beside her. "Terra, what's wrong?"

She flinched when he tried to touch her. Not a word. Not a glance.

"Terra, you have to talk to me."

She shook her head, eyes locked on the floor. "You should stay away from me."

Of all the things she could have said, that hurt the most. "You know I can't do that. Terra—"

"Stop it!" she finally snapped, snatching her pillow and folding it over her ears before curling back up on the bed.

He'd never seen her this way. If she couldn't even talk to him or even let him touch her, what was he supposed to do? Let her self-destruct in slow, solitary silence as if it wasn't entirely against her nature? No, if she wouldn't tell him what happened, he would figure it out another way. "EDI, you heard her in the med bay." He cast a wary glance Terra's way to make sure that pillow was actually blocking out the conversation. Or at least that she didn't care anymore. "What happened?"

_"The commander discovered evidence that the Reapers were encroaching on the Viper Nebula's mass relay," EDI answered._

That was enough to run Garrus' blood cold. The Reapers. That close already? That was far beyond "bad news."

_"Dr. Kenson was indoctrinated by the time Shepard arrived but had already made arrangements for an asteroid to be used as a destruction device. Shepard was able to activate it and cut off the Reapers' entry…by destroying the mass relay."_

If Garrus had a constitution any weaker and possibly if he wasn't sitting down, he would've collapsed. _Terra_ had _destroyed_ a _mass relay_?! They had always believed it wasn't even possible. How…how… Oh. Oh no. "EDI…what happens when you destroy a mass relay?"

_"The energy within is released in a cascade comparable to a supernova. …the shockwave destroyed the entire solar system."_

Garrus almost did collapse when he heard that. It was no wonder Terra was so broken. She couldn't live with herself if she let one civilian die, let alone… "…how many…?"

Terra spoke up now, lowering the pillow from her ears. Apparently, she had been listening. "304,942."

_Spirits…_ How could anyone come back from that? Terra, especially, would be devastated at the loss of worlds she never got to see, lives cut short because of her… It wasn't fair that she had been forced to make the choice, but he knew why she did. "Terra, listen to me. You did what you had to do."

"Don't!" she sat up, only now looking at him and only to glare at him, "Don't try to save me!"

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't. It's why I'm here." Before she could fight him off, he took hold of her. "You did the right thing…and it's exactly what I would've done."

The very concept hurt her. She couldn't bear to think of Garrus having to make that choice for her, of him carrying this weight after he had to carry Omega. "…that's not true."

"Sure, it is. Any turian would've. Wasn't it you who told me about that human phrase about the 'needs of the many'?"

Those weren't her words, though. She stood by them, but in this instance… "Maybe I'm not as turian as I thought."

"_You are_. Because even if you can't see it now, you knew when you did it that it was the only way. That they would've died anyway when the Reapers came through but taking action now gives the rest of us time."

"What good is time if no one's taking it?!"

She had a point there, one he couldn't very well argue with after seeing how slow to act even the hierarchy was on this front. "We're going to end this. We're going to make all this worth something. But you can't break before we get there. We need you."

She shook her head, her eyes falling back to the floor. "You don't need me."

He wasn't going to sit back and let her think that. He stood firm to make sure she knew that. "_I_ do."

Those were the words she needed to hear. Even after what she'd done, she still had someone who loved and supported her, who needed and relied on her. She couldn't shut him out and she couldn't let him down. She had to be strong for him. But that didn't make the pain go away, not yet. It didn't change what she had done. It just changed how she had to come to terms with it. So she didn't even try to stop herself from falling into his arms completely as the tears came over her again.

He held her close, doing everything he could to chase her sorrow away no matter how futile it might be. "I'm here. It's over."

The words had comforted her once. Now they only proved why she could feel dread and fear boiling beneath her guilt. "It's not over. …it's _starting_."

This was one time he hated that she was right. "…I know."

They closed off the deck for the rest of the day so Terra could vent her feelings in isolation and lean on her turian for strength like she hadn't had to in nearly 15 years. In an hour, she felt like she had shed a tear for every innocent life she'd taken and she was about to collapse from dehydration, but Garrus stayed with her, giving her everything she needed without another word of consolation. She couldn't process any more words of comfort right now, she just needed him there. At the end of it, they were simply sitting there, her lying back in his arms as her remorse faded to weariness. He was still there. He would stay there all night if he had to.

After a more-than-suitable length of silence had passed, he turned to ask what he hadn't dared to since they started. "Any better yet?"

She shrugged. "It's gonna take some time. But you were right. I tried to warn them, it's not my fault I couldn't get through in time…and if I had to go back, I'd do the same thing."

He stayed close, his arms still around her. There was nothing he could do to make this any easier, but she was coming around and that was enough. To begin with, at least.

She knew in that moment what she had to do. It pained her to think of it, but she knew one thing she could do to handle that. "…I wanna go home."

Such a simple statement that dug into his core. This wasn't how he had wanted to take her back, but if she needed it, he wasn't going to deny her, no matter how painful it would be to go there now. "EDI, tell Joker to take us to Palaven."

There was only time to establish a course plotting before lights out, leaving EDI to do some steering, but knowing they were on their way was enough to calm Terra. She still had Garrus stay close through the night, sleeping still wrapped up in his embrace. She didn't really want to leave the deck in the morning either. Still, she did it, because it was only fair to the crew to explain what was going on. She asked Garrus to stay back for this one while everyone else gathered on the crew deck and listened to her retell the story of the Alpha Relay and what their next course of action was going to be. While they were all offering their individual forms of support or concerns for what was coming, Garrus was flipping through her sketchbook again. She hadn't written or drawn anything in the past three days except one line that could be considered poetry.

"Even a champion must draw blood."

After the conversation with the crew was over and the ship was drawing close to the Apien Crest, Garrus took Terra's side and clung to it, handing her back her sketchbook with a barely concealed look of concern. She responded with a look of barely held reassurance and kept hold of his hand for the entire trip. When they finally found a place to dock, Terra gave the briefest of considerations for introducing at least some of her squad-mates to her adopted family, but she figured now wasn't the best time for that (and also, apparently, Tali had already met them at Terra's funeral, so there might be some bad memories to worry about). So Terra and Garrus stepped off hand in hand and let the squad decide whether to disembark or not.

Terra hadn't come back to Palaven in years. Ever since she originally left, she'd only had short visits between deployments. It was strange how, even though nothing had really changed, it all looked different. Perhaps that was because she had changed. Because of her feelings for Garrus or the things she had seen and done…she had definitely changed. She didn't like to think of it that way, though. The horizon was much the same, so she clung to that, the sight she had loved enough to capture and give to Garrus. It was comfort after so much madness, one he took the time to let her enjoy even as they made their way to the outskirts of Cipritine.

It seemed odd that he was still guiding her and she was still letting him even though she knew her way there. Maybe they were both merely looking back at a simpler time.

Terra smiled to see the house again after everything that happened. It hadn't been in use since she enlisted, but she could even still see the patch set aside for her farming efforts. It felt like coming home, a feeling she would never get from seeing Mindoir. It felt even better when Solana opened the door. Terra didn't give her a chance to even react to them being there before she had jumped to hug her adopted sister.

Solana was overjoyed to return it. "Terra! Garrus! What are you doing here?"

"Let's just say we needed a break," Garrus smirked as Terra reluctantly pulled away.

Solana smirked as she ushered them inside to close the door behind them. "So long as you realize you now owe me the whole story."

Garrus shook his head. "I don't think we have enough time for that long a conversation."

"Actually," Terra corrected, "I thought we might stay the night."

Garrus looked at her in amazement. "What? Really?"

"It's not like we have any leads to follow right now. I'm sure the crew will be fine without us for one night."

It still seemed like a huge change of pace that had come out of nowhere, but he couldn't blame her for wanting to stay after everything that had happened. "OK."

So Terra briefly messaged EDI to explain their prolonged absence while Solana was letting her parents know they had "guests."

"When you said 'soon,'" Castis remarked as he came to greet them, "we weren't expecting you meant _this_ soon."

Garrus smirked. "We keep our promises."

His mother entered the room behind her husband and smiled at the sight of her son. "Garrus!" She rushed over to lay her head on his. "It's good to see you again. I worry."

"Oh, come on, Mom, when have I ever given you cause to worry?"

She gave him a sharp look.

He then remembered this was the first time she was seeing him in person since he acquired his scars. "Oh. Right."

"And I here I thought I worried plenty," Terra smirked.

His mother lurched back when she heard that voice, turning to Terra in shock. "Terra? That's…_how_…?"

Castis took her side, carefully calming her down and reminding her of the video call earlier that week. He had clearly had to take action like this several times before. Terra admired how he loved and stood by his wife in even these darkest of times but regretted that it was necessary.

She finally faced Terra directly, inching closer. "You…it's really you?"

Terra nodded. She smiled, but it was dimmed to see the light in her adopted mother's eyes so weak, to see her mind slowly failing and taking her body with it. "It's me."

Terra and Garrus spent the next two or three hours explaining everything that had gone down since Garrus left the Citadel. Throughout the whole conversation, Terra was watching his mother, finding that she was holding up but still fighting a losing battle. It wasn't fair. It _wasn't_.

Garrus stopped explaining when they came to what had happened yesterday. He gave Terra a glance to ask if she was OK with sharing it, but she waved it off, saying something about how that was enough of the story and the mission she'd attempted solo had ended badly and made her want to see her adopted family again. That seemed a satisfactory enough answer for them to forego their questions and move along to making arrangements for Terra and Garrus to stay the night.

After the sun had gone down, Terra had returned to her old room. It was the same now as it had been when she first arrived, as if she had never even been there, but she knew. It felt like her space as much as the captain's cabin on the _Normandy_ ever did. She had memories here, countless nights up talking with Solana or Garrus, just as many admiring the sky or the city through the window. This was where she had moved on from her abruptly fractured childhood and become who she was meant to be. In a way, it felt strange to come back here. But in another way, it felt right.

Garrus stepped in behind her. "Missing the good old days?"

She smirked. "Don't you have a room of your own?"

"Yeah, but in case you haven't noticed…" He moved closer, placing his hands on her waist and her shoulder. "…things have changed."

"…yeah. They have." She sighed. "I wish they'd stop doing that."

He laughed. "You're not the first to say so and you won't be the last."

"…things are going to change again soon. For _everyone_. I don't…I don't want…"

"Hey…" He turned her to face him, his talons reaching up to brush the hair from over her right eye (only for it to slip back in place out of habit, though it still made his point). "…whatever's coming, we'll face it together, we'll stop it together, and we won't let anything get in our way."

Words to live by. She could only hope it would be that simple. She doubted it would—nothing was _ever_ simple for them—but she hoped all the same. "…stay with me."

He smiled and nodded. "Always."

So when they lied down to sleep, they lied down together in her old bed, safely wrapped in each other's arms. Terra took longer to fall asleep than he did, her thoughts a restless tornado within her, praying ceaselessly for time to stop on this moment so she could stay tight in her turian's embrace and not have to face what was coming next. But time ticked by all the same. She couldn't stop it. All she could do was appreciate this moment while it was still here and cling to the memory as she did to him. So she held on tight, finally fading to sleep to the sound of his heartbeat and dreaming of a life where time moved slower and there was nothing out there waiting to get in the way of simply being held by her mate.

The night passed all too quickly. The dawn was unforgiving.

As soon as Garrus woke up, he knew something was wrong. Confused, he opened his eyes to search the room.

Terra. She wasn't there.

He told himself she might just have gotten up first and left him to sleep, but something didn't feel right. Like she wasn't even in the house anymore. "Terra?" He was about to get up and start searching the house when he noticed something on the pillow. A note? Confused, he opened it and began to read.

Garrus,  
I'm so sorry. I'm leaving. I'm dissolving the team, taking the _Normandy_ to Earth, and turning myself in for what happened to Aratoht. I would have told you, but you would've come with me, and I don't want you to pay for what I did.  
I don't know when I'll see you again, but I promise I will. I'm still yours. …I'll always love you.  
\- Terra

By the time he'd finished reading, he felt hollowed out. She…she wouldn't. This was wrong. She couldn't have… But she did. In his denial, he looked around the room one more time and saw that she had actually snuck his belongings off the ship and dropped them there, none of hers in sight. He finally turned the note over and found it was written on the back of a drawing torn from her sketchbook. The drawing of their embrace on the Presidium.

Without thinking, he set the page aside and turned on his COMM to call her. "Come on, Terra, pick up…"

She didn't. She was already curled up in a corner of her cabin, fighting tears for leaving him behind. When her COMM beeped, she didn't even check to see who it was. She knew. She couldn't talk to him like this. She disconnected entirely.

When Garrus heard the signal drop, he growled to himself in frustration and tried a different tactic, calling the _Normandy_ itself.

_EDI intercepted it almost immediately. "I'm sorry, Officer Vakarian, but Commander Shepard has asked me to block any attempt for you to access ship communications."_

Spirits, she was serious. She knew only EDI could keep him from hacking in. "EDI, please, just let me talk to her."

_"She has asked me to tell you 'Please don't make this any harder than it already is.' I would advise you to heed this."_

…he had to. She was doing what she thought was best for both of them, for their peoples, and she knew she couldn't if he so much as tried to talk her out of it. He had to stay back and let this happen, no matter how much he hated the idea of her being punished for what had happened at Aratoht. No matter how much they had both promised never to separate again. Was the galaxy _ever_ fair?

He sighed, realizing he was going to have to approach this a different way. "Could you at least pass a message on for me?"

_"What message?"_

"…I don't agree with this, but I understand. And I'm waiting for her."

_"I will tell her. …she misses you."_

He smiled wryly. "The feeling's mutual. Keep her safe for me, EDI." After he hung up, he sat there on the bed that was once hers, looking down at the drawing in his hands as if it was the last he had of her.

He didn't want to live without her. But since she was alive this time and she needed him to, he would try. For her.


	57. Independent Assortment

I understand a lot of people were hoping I would change the events of the Arrival DLC, so I feel like I need to explain why I didn't. First of all, all of the things that could have been changed to affect the actual outcome happened before Shepard came to Aratoht in the first place, so Terra's involvement wouldn't have been able to alter it either. Secondly, the third game has to start the same way, which means Terra has to turn herself in while Garrus stays behind, which she would only do for such a big crisis as the Arrival sequence. And lastly…well, I just preferred to write it this way and couldn't think of anything better. So I'm sorry I couldn't give a more cheerful outcome, but you'll soon discover that's about to change, promise. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the next couple chapters before we move on to the third game. Here we go.

Chapter 57: Independent Assortment

Though in space we are distant  
Though our paths may diverge  
We will still be connected  
Our roads parallel  
Until we find a way back to each other

_November 11, 2185…_

Terra couldn't bear to say goodbye to Garrus, but neither could she bear to not say goodbye to Solana or her parents. On her way out, she'd taken the time to warn them what was about to happen, explain why it was necessary, and promise she'd be praying for their safety. They were sad to see her go, especially when Solana silently took notice of how Terra was fighting tears, but they were turian and they knew why she needed to take the hit for the good of the Alliance, especially with the Reapers clearly drawing close.

That didn't make it any easier when Garrus came out, dejected and heartbroken, left behind for spirits knew how long. Solana, now fully understanding just what had happened recently, was there for him. Their mother was there for both of them as best she was capable right now.

Castis, on the other hand, took it upon himself to make sure Terra's actions would not be in vain any longer. Within an hour of Terra's departure, he had contacted the primarch. The basics of the story were already reaching Palaven over the news feed, which complicated things a bit, but Castis stood firm, insisting this meant they needed to take action. "You can't afford to shrug this off any longer, Fedorian. What happened at Aratoht means we're running out of time."

_"We've already taken precautions at your insistence," the primarch retorted, "And now you want us to prepare for war based on the account of a human who's being charged with mass murder?"_

Having heard what really happened, that insinuation sent a growl through his sub-vocals that he hoped wouldn't transmit down the line. "No, based on the account of my son and his mate, who I happen to consider an adopted daughter."

_"Fine, I understand, but I also have to draw the line somewhere. Even if we were to act on Shepard's warnings, we have no authority to speak with her while she's being prosecuted—"_

"She's being prosecuted in her position as an Alliance soldier, not a Palaven citizen."

_"She's not a citizen, she wasn't born here."_

"Actually, it doesn't matter where she was born. She lived here long enough to earn basic rights, enough for you to hear her out."

_"…you're not going to let this go, are you?"_

"We're talking about the safety of every last turian in the hierarchy. No. I won't."

_"Fine. If your son is such an expert, he can start organizing our defenses. We'll even establish contact with Commander Shepard if we have to. We'll talk about further action when it's been proven we need it."_

Not much, but it was more than they'd had for the past two years and it might make a difference in the end, so he took it.

Garrus was still a bit too dismayed to act on the "promotion" just yet, but he wasn't shutting down entirely like he had after Alchera, so they all knew he'd be back in form making sure her actions were not ignored this time before the week was out. Right now, he just needed time. And his family.

Garrus started recovering faster than they expected when Castis explained just what he had managed to negotiate for them. Garrus was actually being given command of their preparations. And if they played their hand right, he could use that to stay in contact with Terra, maybe even leverage some kind of transfer from the Alliance to the hierarchy since she wasn't technically an Alliance soldier anymore… It was a long shot, but he was used to those and he'd take any he could find if it meant seeing her again. So he set to work.

They might not be able to stop the Reapers yet, but they could hold them off. At least long enough for evacuations. He'd make sure of it.

_November 13, 2185…_

Terra had found that her visits to Earth came in three varieties. The first kind was the happy, carefree, wondrous escapade of showing Garrus around her home-world as he had shown her Palaven. The second was the bittersweet, hit-and-miss stay that had been her basic training, also known as "wow, this farmer turned bird-lover is really good, but let's all pick on her anyway." Now she had discovered a third, absolute nightmarish flavor that was the slog of her "trial."

She had arrived at Alliance headquarters ready for the worst, even going so far as to surrender the _Normandy_ and try not to display how heartbroken she was at the prospect. The press had shown up in 30 seconds, already filling the entire ANN with the bulletin that Commander Shepard was indeed alive and being held on charges of either treason or mass murder or maybe both. Hackett had managed to hold them off and escort her safely inside, but it was still all downhill from there. The entire Alliance Parliament knew what had really happened at Aratoht, but her reasons didn't change their mind. Her sentence had already been determined, the trial was just a show for the public. She was declared guilty in a matter of hours to assure the batarians that justice was being served, then she was quietly slipped into house arrest in the Vancouver base. And that was the end of that.

Her communications were being monitored as a precaution because of her tempestuous history with Cerberus, so she elected not to attempt calling any of her crewmates. …_former_ crewmates. Most of them, including the entire squad, had left on Palaven and gone back to their lives, all promising to stand with her when the time came. The time hadn't come yet. She was just lonely. She might still have risked a call to Garrus or Solana, but it was too painful just yet, so she sat in the silence she so despised and considered that the real punishment.

Hours ticked by. Somewhere out there, the Reapers were redirecting their approach, circumventing the delay she had forced upon them. Somewhere out there, there were batarians who had lost family or friends to her, who would probably wish her dead or worse for what she had done to their world by trying to save their people. …somewhere out there, Garrus was once again trying to find his way in a world without her while his mother slowly wasted away and their crewmates drifted apart. And through all that, she was trapped here. Why did everything in her life have to conspire against her like this?

Then again, that wasn't entirely true. She could've escaped this time, run away with Garrus instead of from him. She hadn't. Instead, she'd left her mate behind without even telling him she was leaving and submitted to her fate like…well, like a turian, to be honest. Maybe trying to balance both sides of herself was what was really threatening to undo her.

The one small grace in this situation was that they had left her pack untouched so she could keep her sketchbook and pencil case close at hand. She made use of that now, not to draw but to scrawl out a line of poetry.

Difficult comes easy  
Not from bravery  
But from selflessness

She didn't know how long she sat there, hovering over this partial verse, before she heard someone knocking on her door. Confused at first, she quickly put her book away and went to answer the door.

The last person she expected answered. "This what you call 'being careful' now?"

For the first time since her sentencing, she smiled. "Anderson!" She almost hugged him.

He smiled back. "I heard about what happened. Thought you could use a friendly face."

"No kidding. What are you doing here, though? Shouldn't you be on the Citadel?"

Anderson sank back into the wall. "No. I resigned from the Council."

Just like that, the joy from seeing him seeped out of her. "What? Why?"

"It didn't exactly fit me to begin with. Once I saw I wasn't really making a difference, at least as far as preparing for the Reapers was concerned, I felt like I'd outlived my usefulness there. Plus, the politics were getting too much for me. I need to be back here." He smirked. "They're talking about making me an admiral now, you know."

She was glad to hear that and she understood his reasons, but it still seemed like a mistake. She had suggested he take the position in the first place because she trusted him, because she knew he was a good leader, because the alternative was Udina and he was a politician more than anything else. The Council wasn't going to listen about the Reapers anyway, not if seeing Sovereign hadn't swayed them in the end, but it had been a comfort to know that one of them was really fighting for the people. Even if Udina had come around about the Reapers by now, he would only be fighting for humanity. Fair enough since humans were still looked down upon by some, especially considering what she'd done, but still. She fought for unity. Anderson understood that. Udina wouldn't. The Council worked best in balance from harmony, not from equable prejudice.

Not seeing how to put all this simply for her old captain's sake, though, Terra resorted to the blunt version: "I get it, but you picked a bad time."

Anderson scoffed. "The way I see it, there won't be a good time until the Reapers are already dealt with…or it's too late to worry about it." He looked at her more seriously now. "How long have we got?"

Terra shrugged. "There were about ten minutes out from that relay when it blew, so they're close enough for FTL. We don't know how fast theirs are. Could be another two years…could only be three months."

"Then we need to work quickly. I'll start managing our defenses as soon as I can."

Terra took comfort in that. Anderson knew what they were up against and wouldn't let the Alliance slack off over this threat like the Council was trying to. If they couldn't guarantee the whole galaxy, at least they could keep Earth safe.

Or die trying. But she didn't want to even think about that. Not yet.

Before the conversation could carry much further, someone else came up from down the hall. "Commander Shepard, I—" He stopped in his tracks when he saw Anderson there, quickly standing at attention. "Captain Anderson! Sorry, I didn't know you were here."

"I was just dropping by, Lieutenant," Anderson said, "Feel free to report in."

He nodded, turning back to Terra. "James Vega. I'm gonna be, uh…guarding you."

Terra nodded back. "Right. Nice to meet you, I guess."

"Suppose I should let you two get to know each other," Anderson remarked, turning to go.

Terra winced at the wording but opted to simply offer a farewell.

Anderson stopped halfway out and turned back to look at her. "Oh, one more thing. I just got word that, apparently, Admiral Hackett received a communications request from some of the higher-ups in the turian hierarchy."

That was news she wasn't expecting. "Really? Who was it? What did they want?"

"Just said they were working for the primarch…" He smirked. "…and that they wanted to discuss invasion protocols."

Terra felt the joy that had seeped out of her earlier slowly returning. The primarch was finally listening. At least enough to start taking proper precautions. And maybe, if she was proving valuable to the turian defense coordination like she had been hoping for all those years ago, they might claim her and remove her from Alliance jurisdiction entirely. It was a bit much to hope for, but either way, maybe it would mean her two peoples would finally start truly cooperating. …maybe it would mean getting to speak to Garrus again.

It was too early to think about how this mess was going to clear itself up. She just focused on giving a friendly farewell to Anderson and a cordial greeting to James before returning to her isolation, now with a small ray of light peering through. However this all turned out, she could cling to the promise she had made to him as a promise to herself: she would see him again.

_December 19, 2185…_

Garrus had gone to Omega in the first place because he had felt like he hadn't been making a difference. He was avoided that useless feeling this time by involving himself in the primarch's promised attempts to prepare for the Reapers. There wasn't much they could do to counter the assaults of such a powerful force, but they could still harden their defenses, bolster their communications and emergency supplies, and at least organize strategies for evacuation should it come to that. It was pretty clear this was a token task force, but he was still making sure they got as much out of it as they could. The fact he was in charge of it was especially helpful to keeping his morale up.

Still, the real boost to his morale came when he received word that Fedorian had actually lived up to his word and convinced the Alliance to let them contact Commander Shepard. He didn't let anyone argue when he stepped up to make the first call. Let them handle the actual discussions with her later. Right now, he needed to hear his mate's voice.

She answered on the first ring. She must have been waiting for this moment for a while. _"Shepard."_

One word and he felt the emptiness she had left behind filling up again. He had what he hadn't had last time: a connection, however small, that proved she'd come back to him one day. "I believe you were expecting a call from some turians?"

He could hear her smiling at the sound of his voice. But her words didn't show it. _"I was. What do they need from me?"_

At first, he was confused why she was acting so distant. Then he realized what must be going on. Even for official business with Palaven, her communications were being monitored. Did the Alliance not trust her for _anything_ anymore?

Then again, he should probably be thankful her punishment wasn't worse than house arrest and that they were allowing her outside communication at all. He was just going to have to take the difficulty of making this sound like the introductory conversation it was meant to be rather than a personal call. …because that was going to be _so_ simple.

He finally tried to keep his professionalism up (again, _so_ simple) and answer: "The primarch has arranged a task force to prepare countermeasures in response to your warnings about the Reapers." _Finally._ "I have experience, but you're the expert, so we're coordinating."

He also heard her smirk. He knew her too well. _"I can do that. Not like I'm going anywhere."_

He took some comfort in hearing her try to be witty in spite of all they were going through. She wasn't exactly the most optimistic person he knew, but she knew how to find the bright side all the same. It was in her artistic, poetic nature. It was one of the many, many reasons he loved her.

They talked business as they were meant to, planning how to organize the turian defenses and who all she would have to be connected to (most of which was him, to be honest), but they were talking underneath it with more than words. As only they could, they let what they weren't saying speak for them, let the feelings in his sub-vocals and her subtext tell them what they really needed to hear—"I love you," "I'm here for you," "I'll see you again soon." Whatever was coming, they would still have that to hold onto.

By the time they were forced to disconnect, they had seemed to come to terms with the limits on their arrangement and returned to being glad it was made. It wasn't much, but it was something.

"We'll call again when we need your input," Garrus said, making it clear to her and nobody else that he would be counting the moments.

_"I'll be here. Palaven is my home, too, you know…keep it safe."_

She didn't need to tell him. Still, he assured her he would before they ended the call.

Palaven was as resilient as the people native to it. It wouldn't fall. He'd do everything he possibly could to make sure of that. Like she would for all of them. They were running out of time, but they weren't running out of hope. Not yet.

Not yet.


	58. Forthcoming

Chapter 58: Forthcoming

No matter the worlds between us  
No matter how life intervenes  
No matter how long or how dark  
We will still feel each other's hearts  
And meet once again in our dreams

_January 7, 2186…_

It seemed to Garrus like everything was slow going these days. Preparing the invasion protocols was progressing at a moderate rate, no sign was received of any motions to help Terra, and there was no word of if the salarians' research on Corpalis had finally yielded any results. He felt like he was just waiting for one of those fronts to completely deteriorate. If he wasn't getting to technically talk to Terra about once a week, he'd be losing it.

"Don't you get dizzy doing that?"

He stopped what he was doing when he realized Solana had caught him pacing in the living room. "I was just…thinking."

She folded her arms at him. "Uh-huh."

He shook his head. "You don't have to babysit me, Sol."

"And yet here we are."

He groaned, realizing she was about to corner him, and started making his way outside.

She followed him, of course. "You don't have to just stand around feeling sorry for yourself. Sooner or later, you're going to have to figure out who you are without her."

"We're mated, Sol. I'm not supposed to _be_ without her!"

"Well, she realizes that as much as you and I do, and yet she still left. Do you see her going stir crazy?"

"I don't _see _it because I'm not there, but yes, it turns out she is."

Solana sighed, seeing his point. "Look, I'm not saying you shouldn't be upset, I'm just saying—" She stopped in her tracks when she realized he had. Confused, she followed his gaze.

Their mother was standing behind the house, halfway between the area Garrus had once used as a shooting range and the patch Terra had cordoned off for her garden. She stood there in silence, her back to them, barely even moving.

Not sure what to make of this, Garrus moved in, his sister following close behind. "Mom?"

She sighed. "I can see why you all spent so much time out here. It's beautiful on days like this." She cast a brief glance up at the sky. "Easier to think."

He'd been back home long enough to see the patterns in her degeneration. He could tell it was indeed easier on her out here. He was hesitant to risk interrupting that, a sentiment he noticed Solana definitely shared.

"…you know we're running out of time."

Garrus shook his head. "Mom, you shouldn't—"

"No," she asserted, "I need to say this while I'm thinking clearly." She faced him. "I know you tried everything you could for me. I'm grateful. It's just my time."

"It's not yet—!"

"But it doesn't have to be everyone else's. Try half as hard for the rest of Palaven and they'll make it. I believe in you."

It meant a lot to hear her say that, but that didn't change the fact that it hurt to think of it that way.

She thought otherwise, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt to think of other things. Her gaze drifted off to the side, to the garden that had once belonged to a lost human girl. "I tried tending some of it for her, you know. After she left. I never got it to grow like she did, but it flowered on its own. Beautifully." She kept her eyes on the soil, saddened at the sight of it now. "I didn't get to be to her what I should've. It was always the two of you who gave her a family. Castis was never there to and I—"

"That's not true," Solana stepped in, "She knows you tried. It meant enough that you were there at all after what she'd been through. You supported her, and she looked up to you. She still does."

"…you would know. I just wish I'd gotten to tell her myself before now."

Garrus had to do something now. He wasn't such an active artist as Terra was and didn't constantly keep a sketchbook with him, but his hands had been idle enough the past two months for him to resort to keeping the basics in his pack just in case. This qualified. "Write it down then. I'll make sure she sees it."

His mother took the implements in hand. Instead of setting to work immediately, though, she smiled weakly to her son. "You love her."

He had made that pretty obvious, but hearing her say it still struck him. "More than anything."

She found a bit more strength in the conviction behind his statement. She made use of it. "Prove it. Hold onto her."

He knew why she was telling him this. He understood. He just wished it wasn't necessary. Not sure how to react, he simply nodded and took the words to heart.

She then turned to Solana. "And you be sure to find someone to love as well."

Solana tried to smile. "I'll do my best."

Content with their promises, she stepped off to the side and sat down to start writing out her final words to her adopted daughter.

Solana watched her. "She's in the final stage. She doesn't have very long now."

Garrus had been trying so hard to push aside that thought, so hard to convince himself that it wasn't true and there was still a chance. But he had seen her failing, going far too long without a promise of treatment from the salarians that was anywhere close to definite. They'd run out of options. All they had was her force of will. Clearly, she had finally realized it wasn't enough, no matter how strong she was. The thought of the woman who'd raised him succumbing like this was unspeakable…which he was finding all too often lately just meant it was more likely true.

Solana was facing the same thought, fighting how her hands shook and her sub-vocals keened as it came over her. "I still don't know what to do."

Garrus had never in his life had to comfort Solana, at least not like he had for Terra. Still, he was her brother, so he stepped in now, taking her hand and lending her some of the strength that had been failing him. "Sometimes there's nothing we can do…but to stand our ground."

They both tried to hold onto this. They both succeeded for all of three hours. That night, when their mother collapsed again, she began to struggle just to breathe. Castis finally determined there was nothing for it but to take her to the hospital.

"Castis, you don't have to—" she started to argue.

He simply supported her all the way out of the house. "I made a vow to stand with you through anything. I'm keeping it."

Even through the haze of denial that this wasn't a sign of the end, Garrus took the time to admire his father's determination and love. He knew what it was like to be mated now, if not what it was like to be outright bonded, so he knew what it was like to see his mate struggling and sympathized with the plight of being unable to save them. None of this was fair.

But nothing in love comes easy.

As he slumped into bed that night, feeling more helpless than ever, he tried to think of a way to circumvent this, something he could do to change what was about to happen. When he finally came up empty, his thoughts turned to the words his mother had left him with that he hoped wouldn't be the last she truly gave him—_"Prove it. Hold onto her."_ He had every intention of holding onto Terra as long as he could, but he found a deeper meaning in the words now.

He might not be able to help his mother overcome this uphill battle. But Terra…for Terra, he would summit any height.

_February 21, 2186…_

When Terra heard chatter in the hallway outside her "cell," she didn't think much of it. When she realized one of the voices she was hearing was _Garrus'_, she thought she was going crazy. She finally went over to press her ear to the door.

"…she's not supposed to have visitors." That was definitely James.

"She's also not supposed to be contacting anyone, and yet here we are." And _that_ was definitely Garrus!

Terra didn't give herself a chance to think about what she was doing before she had opened the door.

Garrus immediately noticed. She wasn't sure how he managed to contain the joy obviously bursting in his eyes at the sight of her. Quite frankly, neither was he. "Shepard."

James turned to her. "Look, I know you two have been talking for those top-secret turian conferences or whatever, but this—"

"You can trust him, Vega," Terra said, "If you get any trouble for it, I'll say you weren't there when he showed up and take the heat for it myself. It's not like they can do much worse."

James took a moment to consider. He seemed to realize it was best not to waste time arguing about it, though. With a quick glance around to make sure no one noticed, he turned to guard the hall rather than the door. "I can get you five minutes."

"Ten!"

"_Five_!"

Terra rolled her eyes, hurrying Garrus into her room.

The second they were behind closed doors, they jumped into each other's arms and kissed.

Terra was reluctant to separate after they'd been unable to do this for four months, but she had to ask. "How did you pull this off?"

He smirked. "I needed to see you. I told Fedorian I had some data you needed to look over that I couldn't send through monitored communications, so he and Anderson pulled some strings. The real trouble was Solana. She was awfully worried I was trying to run away again."

She smirked back. "Now why would she ever think that?"

He hesitated to answer. So much so that he stiffened, his hands drifting down from where they held her.

She always knew when something was bothering him. This one was clearly so big she couldn't afford to ignore it. "…Garrus, what's wrong?"

With a soft, resigned sigh, he drew her over to the bed and sat down with her. He didn't want to say it, didn't want to face what had happened, but he had come all this way to tell her in person and she deserved to hear it. So he forced himself to speak up. "It's Mom."

Those two words were like a dagger through her heart. There was only one thing it could mean now. "…no…"

He couldn't even look at her as the truth began to cloud the room. All they had done had been for nothing in the end. They'd found out too late that she had been too far gone where treatment was concerned for months. In a way, that made it easier for him to accept that this wasn't a failure on his part. But now it felt like he'd been wasting time he could've spent making the most of how long they'd had left. Either way…she was gone…and he was still helpless.

Perhaps that was part of why he had come to see Terra. Because he had known she would feel the same way. As the news of their loss sunk in, she descended into tears, eventually so deep that he had to hold her. Though, for once, he had no strength to lend her to fight it off. For once, he was just as deep in it and they were simply keeping each other steady in a flood of grief. "I'm so sorry." The words were inelegant, inadequate, but true all the same. "And I'm sorry I wasn't there."

"Don't," he quickly retorted, "It's probably better you weren't."

She disagreed, but she knew why he said it. What good would it have done for her to sit there with them and watch it end? Why should she have to endure that? None of them should've had to.

He sighed. "Is this what it was like for you? After Mindoir?"

Even for a poet of her caliber, there were no words she could string together to console him. She knew because she had been there. She could only answer him. "That was worse…but yeah."

Some part of him scoffed at the irony that _this_ would wind up being added to the list of things they had shared, that the tragedy that her brought her to him in the first place would be reflected like this… He finally pulled away from her and reached into his pocket. "She knew she was running out of time, so she, uh…she wrote this for you."

Terra reluctantly took the note from his hands and opened it.

Terra,  
I don't know if Garrus ever told you, but I was the one who suggested we take you in. When he called me and Castis that day and told us what had happened to you and how you were willing to stand on your own after it…I just knew you deserved a place with us. I didn't know if we could do anything to help you recover from such a tremendous misfortune, but I knew we needed to try. So I accepted you, and Garrus, Solana, and Castis did the same.  
I knew when we met that you were special. I couldn't have guessed what you would become, but I knew you would be great. Someone strong enough to survive so much would have to be. I admired your resilience and determination, your courage and ingenuity. In a way, I came to think of you as my own. I know I never said so, but I saw you as my daughter.  
Losing you hurt like losing a part of myself. That was how I knew that, human or turian or both, you _were_ my daughter. I suppose I never tried to act like it because I knew how much your own mother meant to you and how badly you were scarred by losing her. But I hope you still knew that I cared, that I worried when you were gone and rejoiced when you returned, that the house seemed a lot emptier without you in it. And I hope you know you were part of my family.  
I hope you also know that I never saw my son half as happy as I have when he was with you. You two belong together. Don't ever let anything try to tell you otherwise. And though I won't live to see it, when the time comes that you stand as mates and face the next step, whatever it may be, know that I will in that moment finally, officially, and proudly claim you as a daughter.  
I pray to all the spirits that the future will be kind to you. I will meet you on the other side.  
\- Your mother (if you'll have me)

Terra was already crying when she started reading. By the time she finished, it was hard to see the writing past the water in her eyes. She finally curled up on the bed, clutching the letter against her chest and knowing she wouldn't be able to let go of it.

Still beside her, Garrus shook his head. "Does it make me horrible person that I'm glad it's over?"

"That she isn't suffering anymore, our family doesn't have to stand by, and she isn't going to have to witness the Reapers' arrival? No. …not unless we both are."

Garrus clung to the assurance before again clinging to her. They sat there in silence, mourning together, for well beyond five minutes. Terra figured Anderson must have authorized Garrus and stepped in to make sure they weren't interrupted. She felt guilty that he was helping them out when they weren't actually talking shop about Palaven's defenses, but she knew he would understand that this was just as important.

All the same, time still passed. Terra finally, sadly, let him go. "I wish you could stay."

He nodded. "So do I. But my people need me."

"Yeah. Mine do, too." She looked around. "Though they have a more _confined_ way of showing it."

"I don't know. I've been feeling kind of trapped."

She understood why things would be so hard on him. She wished she could alleviate that, but there wasn't much she could do from here. Except…maybe… Coming up with an idea, she retrieved her sketchbook, located the drawing she wanted, tore it out carefully, and handed it to Garrus. "Give that a glance when you need an escape."

He looked at the drawing. It was a perfect horizon of Earth (she did have a good view of it from this room) to match the one of Palaven he had been carrying for nearly 16 years now. He smiled as he slipped it carefully into his pocket next to that other drawing. Then he took something else out. "Here. Since I'm apparently going to miss your birthday again."

She couldn't help but smile as she took the small, carefully wrapped box. "Do I open it now or then?"

He smirked. "I'd kind of like to see it happen, so now's good."

So she opened it. Inside was a batch of pencils to replenish her dwindling supply, colors included (which was something, since finding normal ones in a predominantly digital society was rare enough). But the real present was what they were wrapped up in. As if he had known she was going to do essentially the same thing, he had made rare use of her lessons from all those years ago and drawn her a companion for the demael flower sketch that was pinned inside the cover of her sketchbook…this time a jura flower. "How did you know about—?"

"Solana used one during your funeral," he explained, "I could tell it was important to you two but she never said why. I just thought you could use the reminder that we're both still looking out for you."

She smiled at the sentiment. She smiled more to think of how she and Solana had weaved through foliage dusted with those flowers the night they snuck out to the falls. It was nice to think of the Palaven bloom as a symbol of her bond to her adopted sister. One now represented by her mate's hand. So it was as much from gratitude as from affection when Terra gave him another kiss, making this one last, and then sent him on his way. "You'd better go home before you get us all in trouble. …take care of your dad and Solana. And Palaven. For me."

Garrus agreed. "Everything in my power." He clutched her hand while he could. "I love you."

She knew it to the depths of her soul by now, but she clung to the words and returned them all the same. "I love you. Always."

She was as sad to see him leave as he was to go. She consoled herself by pinning her present in the back cover of her sketchbook and immediately setting to work on a new drawing with her full range of color. It distracted her from the devastation creeping inside her beneath the happiness of simply getting to see him again. At least for a while. By the time she turned in for the night, that flare of elation had faded and the mourning shrouded her completely. She faced it with the letter her late adopted mother had left for her and dreamed of what both her families—both her mothers—meant to her.

When she woke up the next morning, the whole visit seemed like just another bittersweet dream. Like Garrus was still out of her reach but maybe his mother was in recovery. It was only when she opened her sketchbook and found the jura flower sketch still inside the back cover that she took a moment before the grief could crawl back into focus to wistfully smile and dare to ponder when she would see her turian again.

_March 26, 2186…_

The Vakarian household had been far too solemn this past month. Not just because of Terra's incarceration or the impending Reaper invasion. Even after the initial grief-stricken silence had faded, all three of them still felt a little lost, like the house was empty if they weren't all there. Castis had predictably been hit hardest by his mate's death, isolating himself wordlessly for three days before quietly accepting his duty as a father to be there for his children as they struggled to accept the loss. He still seemed broken, like a part of himself had died along with her. Garrus knew what that felt like from spending two years thinking Terra was gone for good, so he had quietly placed upon himself the duty of being there for his father as he struggled on his own. The end result was that Garrus, Solana, and Castis were holding onto each other while they could and slowly, very slowly coming to terms with the fact that the matriarch of the family was gone.

A week ago, Garrus had finally begun to drag himself towards some measure of acceptance, handling the rest by throwing himself into work. He was still the one in charge of organizing the countermeasures for the Reapers, however sparse and minimal they might end up being. He told himself it was no different from calibrating the _Normandy_'s guns, that a 0.01% change could save 100 lives in the heat of battle. He didn't listen to the part of himself that retorted how Sovereign had torn through the Citadel and no amount of preparation could defend against 1000 of those monstrosities.

He pushed through it. He'd promised Terra to do everything in his power to keep Palaven safe. His mother had wanted him to try. His people needed him to. So he was going to ignore the nagging feeling of futility and take action while they still had a change to do so.

Today, however, was different. Today, he had another kind of action to take. His mother had also wanted him to prove his feelings for Terra. Though he had certainly done that by now, he had a way of cementing it in mind. So 16 years later, he returned to the place where he and Solana had bought Terra's necklace and, like with the drawing he'd given as her birthday present, made a twin. He'd be carrying it for a long time, but he was willing to handle that. It would be another reminder that she was coming back to him.

Rather than chasing down stockpiles to fortify and evacuation procedures to arrange, he sat at the edge of Cipritine and watched the horizon, occasionally comparing it to the sketch still folded in his pocket. The Reapers might come, but this was one thing they couldn't tarnish. Of that much, he could safely be certain.

He was still sitting there, dwelling on those contemplations, when he was contacted by the primarch. Apparently, his "task force" could take it from here on Palaven and they needed people on the garrisons on Menae and Nanus. Including him. He didn't like to consider leaving his father and sister to fend for themselves when the time came, but if they could safeguard the moons enough to fend off any invaders from even touching down on Palaven, it would buy time for more evacuations and his family would be safer. So he took the offer and headed straight back home to prepare for his first deployment with the turian military in 15 years.

At this point, everything he owned, at least everything worth carrying, fit in his pack, so he was able to simply grab his gear and move out. He did stop to check his sniper rifle, though. It was the same weapon that had gotten him through the siege on Omega, so he knew it would serve him well. He'd been tending it habitually for years…watching Terra's back with it. As he clutched it tightly and then holstered it, he told himself it would be protecting more than just Terra now. It would be protecting her family and her adopted planet. He had no intention of letting her down.

"And you said you weren't running away again," Solana commented as he prepared to leave.

"I'm not," Garrus assured her, "I'll be less than an hour's flight away. You can call me anytime you want."

She didn't say anything. She didn't have to. It was pretty clear she knew he had to do this but still didn't like it.

He finally sat down beside her. "Listen to me. I don't know how much time we have now, so I need you to be ready. The second you hear so much as a rumor of giant sentient dreadnoughts headed into the Crest, you take Dad and run for the evac shuttles. If you can save anyone else, great, but don't do anything stupid or heroic. You can't fight them head-on. You get out and come find me and Terra. Promise me."

She nodded. "We'll try. But you need to promise me you won't do anything stupid and heroic either."

He smirked. "That worried about me, are you?"

"No, but Terra would break my spine in half if you got killed and I didn't at least try to talk you out of it."

He laughed. "I love you, too, sis."

She laughed back. She had to admit it felt nice to do that again, even like this.

He finally laid his head on hers. "I'll see you when this is over."

She returned the gesture. "Stay safe."

When Garrus finished saying goodbye to Solana and turned to go, he found his father waiting at the door. "Coming to see me off?"

Castis simply followed him outside. "And to wish you luck."

"Since when do you believe in luck?"

"I think we've both seen a lot of impossible things in our time."

Garrus had to agree with that.

Castis looked at him for a moment. "I mean it. Be careful out there. When this all starts, it won't be just any war."

"…I know. You and Solana need to look out for each other."

He nodded. "And you need to stand with Terra."

Garrus couldn't help but smile. "That's who I am."

Castis found himself smiling in return. "Since the day you met her. She changed us all."

"She does that to everyone."

"And you changed her. It's because we were there for her that she found the strength to defend the galaxy. Now she represents the best of both her people and ours. Proof that we need to stand together. But she needs you." The look in his eyes grew darker. "Mating isn't something you can ignore."

Garrus already knew that all too well.

"Take care of her," Castis finally said.

"I will."

So he stepped back. "Go show them what a Vakarian can do."

This day was going to echo in Garrus' memory for months. He could already tell. As he flew to Menae that night, his thoughts jumped between three different extremes.

The countdown to the Reapers' imminent coming.

What was left of his family.

…his future with Terra.


	59. And So Begins the End

Chapter 59: And So Begins the End

We may see it coming  
Yet we cannot stop it  
Fire from the sky  
Blood screaming  
Stars dimming  
Eternity diminishes beneath the howls  
And so begins the end

_April 24, 2186…_

Of all the things left to her in her confinement, Terra was thankful she at least had a window. She had spent countless hours sitting beside it, looking out at the sky or the bustling city of Vancouver. It was especially busy today, Alliance shuttles zooming across the sky, but her eye was drawn to the small park below, where a small boy was playing with a toy ship. She couldn't help but smile at the sight of it, thinking back on a time when she was so young and carefree.

It was 16 years ago today that she lost her entire family. That she watched her parents fall to gunshots to buy their children time to escape. That her brother locked her away with the promise to return only to be killed by the slavers who took her sister. That her colony burned and she was left in silence and despair.

But it was also 16 years ago today that she met Garrus.

She looked down at the sketchbook in her hands. Her mate had been dominating her thoughts for some time now and her art had followed. The last 15 pages she had covered were full of him. She had somehow even managed to perfectly recreate from memory the scars she had only had a few days to learn, a pattern she took special care with. It made her happy to look back on them, but it also filled her with longing. Six months now since she left him. She hadn't even spoken to him in a month. All she could hope for now was that the days were ticking down to when she would see him again.

Suddenly, the door opened, James walking in and standing at attention. "Commander."

"You know you're not supposed to call me that," she commented as she stood up.

"Technically, I'm not supposed to salute you either."

She smirked. She appreciated that he respected her even now. Even though he was supposed to be guarding her, he had almost won her over in terms of reciprocating.

"Anyway," James said, "I need you to come with me. The committee wants to talk to you."

She knew instantly something was wrong. Six months and none of her former superiors had bothered to talk to her. Now they were calling her in? "Sounds important…" She figured her curiosity would be answered when she got there, so she stowed her sketchbook and followed him out.

The Vancouver base was practically Alliance headquarters, so it was not strange to see a large quantity of Alliance personnel milling through the building. It was unusual, though, to see _this many_ people racing through the halls. Not to mention several of them seemed distraught or even afraid. It was a disconcerting sight, to say the least.

"What's going on?" Terra finally asked, "Why's everyone in such a hurry?"

James shrugged. "Don't know. They just said to bring you."

That answer certainly didn't help calm Terra's rising worries. She tried to tell herself that it was probably nothing to worry about or nothing she could affect, but some small part of her knew there was only one thing the committee would call her in for… Then again, even that small part of her grew quiet when they turned a corner and saw a certain admiral on the other side. "Anderson!" she smiled.

He smiled back as he turned to face her, joining them on their way to the main hall. "Shepard. Good to see you holding up."

Terra shrugged. "If you can call it that. Sitting around isn't really my style."

"I might've guessed."

"Is something going on, sir?"

"Looks like it, at least. There's something massive on the long-range scanners."

She stopped in her tracks when she heard this. She'd had her suspicions already, but hearing that cemented them. "…the Reapers?"

Anderson quickly gave her a look that attempted to allay her fears, though his eyes betrayed he shared them. "We don't know that. Not for certain."

"What else could it be?"

"…if I knew that…"

She didn't like uncertainty, but at this point, she almost preferred it. "You know we're not ready if it is them, not by a long shot."

"That's why we need to mobilize, which is why the committee wants to see you."

Terra scoffed even as she returned to following him through the halls. "Unless we're planning to talk the Reapers to death, having a strategy meeting is a waste of time!"

"Maybe, but you're the only one who would know that for sure. You faced down a Reaper. You spoke to one and then blew the thing up!"

"So I'm the expert now? I suppose that's the real reason they grounded me and took away my ship?"

Anderson sympathized with her plight, but he still turned to snap at her now. "You know that's not true! When you blew up the Alpha Relay, 300,000 batarians died!"

"It was that or let the Reapers walk through our back door!"

"I know. But any other soldier would've been tried, court-martialed, and discharged. It's your knowledge of the Reapers that kept that from happening."

She smirked. "That and your good word?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I trust you, Shepard. And so does the committee."

He said that. She hadn't been feeling very trusted. But if they were looking to her for guidance on how to proceed, she wasn't about to hold back just to spite them. She followed Anderson and James to the room leading into the main hall, preparing herself for the worst with every step. By the time they arrived, she was beginning to doubt if anything could prepare her.

"Shepard!"

But maybe she was wrong. "Ashley?!"

Sure enough, the SR-1's gunnery chief stood there, giving a reserved beam at the sight of her former commander. She had changed in the past six months, trading her old Phoenix armor for a more lightweight blue combat suit. And letting her hair down. She looked better that way. It was nice to see her skirting the rules for once like Terra so often did.

"Lieutenant-Commander," Anderson stepped up, "how are we doing?"

"You know how they are," Ashley shook her head, "I'm just waiting for orders now."

Terra looked at her in amazement. "Lieutenant-Commander?"

Anderson turned to her. "You hadn't heard?"

"I'm a bit out of the loop these days, remember?"

"Sorry, ma'am," Ashley quickly said, for some reason resorting to formality, "Didn't mean to leave you out."

Terra waved her off. "It's not like you knew the Reapers were coming and didn't tell me."

Ashley smirked briefly.

Before Terra could attempt to make proper conversation, though, Anderson came back to pull her aside. The committee was ready for them. They headed in.

Behind them, Terra thought her cybernetic-enhanced hearing just barely heard James asking if Ashley knew the commander…and Ashley responding with a dismissive sigh of "I used to." She couldn't lie. That stung.

As soon as Terra followed Anderson into the main hall, the entire room seemed to turn its attention to her. That was enough to make her a bit uneasy, but she acted like no one was even looking at her and took her place at the center of the room. She patiently followed along with the proceedings up until they handed her a datapad and showed her their scan results. She didn't know tech readouts that well, but she knew these. She'd seen them in the intel EDI had gathered after the Collector base.

"The reports coming in are unlike anything we've ever seen," a councilwoman said, "Whatever it is, it's incomprehensibly powerful."

That was all she needed to hear to know for sure. She set the datapad aside and faced them down. "You brought me here to confirm what you already know." So she said the words they all dreaded: "The Reapers…are here."

After the room had finished descending into horrified murmurs, the councilwoman turned to Terra. "Then how do we stop them?"

"'Stop them'? This isn't about strategy or tactics, this is about survival!" She stepped up like the commander she was, letting them know everything she knew that had been ignored for far too long. "The Reapers are stronger than us, more powerful than us—they don't fear us…and they'll never take pity on us."

"Then what should we do?"

"We stand together or we fall alone. We can only withstand what's coming if we work as one."

"That's it?" one of the councilmen scoffed, "That's our plan?"

Before Terra could retort, though, one of the techs off to the side stood up. "Admiral! We've lost contact with Luna Base!"

Anderson couldn't hide his shock. "The moon?! They couldn't be that close already!"

The tech did a few more checks before coming up with something. "Sir, UK headquarters has a visual."

Terra watched as the monitors on the wall filled with an image of an Alliance soldier's distress call. The audio was scrambled, but the entire building must have heard it when it rang out with the mechanical howl that was all too familiar to her. It was like Eden Prime all over again, on a scale magnitudes greater. When the signal cut, it was replace by a dozen news feeds, all filled with what was unfolding.

"Why haven't we heard from Admiral Hackett?" Anderson wondered.

Terra didn't have an answer. She didn't have an answer for anything now.

"What do we do?" the entire committee asked.

That, on the other hand, she could create an answer for. So she faced them again and gave it: "The only thing we can. We fight or we die!"

Anderson stepped up with her. "We should get to the _Normandy_—"

Everything froze. The air was filled with a blazing hum, like a weight descending upon the city. As one, everyone in the room turned to look out the windows…and saw that that was exactly what was happening. It was like a nightmare, seeing the arms of the ship slowly emerge from the clouds to come upon them but being unable to outpace them.

But Terra knew nightmares. She wasn't willing to live one. "MOVE!" she shouted, "GO, GO, GO!" Everyone present raced to follow the order. None of them could move fast enough to escape the hall before a blast of energy aimed directly at them, blowing out the windows and sending the committee table spiraling over their heads. Terra managed to duck, a maneuver that avoided being crushed but slowed her down. Just as she stood back up, another blast fired, the force of the shockwave enough to throw her into the wall and send her tumbling across the floor.

…flames blinking behind her eyes…

"…Shepard…!"

…silence and noise ringing in discord like an out of tune pipe organ…

"…_Shepard_…!"

…muscles tightened and weak as she struggled to move…

"…TERRA!"

She finally managed to regain her senses and her strength, struggling to pull herself together amidst the sparking rubble of the base.

Anderson stood nearby, searching for her. When he saw her moving, he raced over to help her up. "Shepard!" He took her hand, bringing her to her feet and supporting her until she could stand on her own again. Once she nodded to affirm she was OK, he drew a spare pistol and handed it to her.

She felt safer with a gun in her hands. At least until they stepped outside. From what she could see, that pistol would be about as effective as a child's slingshot. She'd never felt so small or helpless as she had to see the Reapers touching down, great balls of fire raining from the sky and crashing down on the streets. Her home-world, the world her parents had been born on, the place she and Garrus had both admired, was falling.

She was living a nightmare after all.

Anderson finally had to give her a push just to get moving. And they did have to get moving. They had to get somewhere safe to call the _Normandy_ and evacuate. Then they'd have to move fast, because every second was another 100 lives lost and Terra wasn't going to risk losing her ship again…even if it wasn't hers anymore. Every step they took seemed to hollow her with despair to see husks crawling all over the city. Those zombie-things would be everywhere within the week. That thought coming over her, she took down the ones she could with extreme prejudice. A pistol wasn't much good against the Reapers, but these things fell all too easily to her assault. The fact that the pistol only had one clip in it (what idiot didn't load this thing before carrying it on active duty?) threatened to slow her down, but that gave her the chance to try out another new gadget she had picked up on the way here.

It was official. She loved omni-blades.

They were just about to head through a fractured passageway when Terra's cybernetic ears caught something else. A nearby vent was shifting. Curious, she stepped over and checked.

The little boy from the park. He was huddled inside, eyes filled with fear. "…everyone's dying…"

Terra quickly took action. "Listen to me. We need to get you somewhere safe." She reached in after him. "Take my hand."

He simply shrunk back farther. "…you can't help me."

She was about to argue when Anderson called her again. When she looked back, the boy was gone. She was more than willing to crawl in after him, but she could barely fit, so she followed the path she knew she could reach.

"This is a mess," Anderson was shaking his head when she came up behind him, "Every minute these things are here, thousands of innocent people die."

Terra didn't just sympathize with his disheartened exclamation, she empathized completely. "It's bad enough fighting a war. It's worse knowing that no matter how hard you try…you can't save them all."

He sighed. "Exactly." With the help of her cybernetic strength, he lifted a toppled girder so they could climb under it. "We need to get to the Citadel. Talk to the Council."

She looked at him, stunned. "Well, of course we do, but we can't just abandon Earth to do it!"

"We don't have a choice. You said it yourself, we can't face the Reapers alone."

She wholeheartedly believed that, but still. "You honestly think they'll do something this time?"

"Maybe, maybe not. But you're still a Spectre. That's gotta count for something."

He had barely said so before the building rattled. Terra nearly lost her footing and fell off the ridge they were edging across, but Anderson caught her. She took a moment to recover before hurriedly returning to the crossing.

"Thanks," she told him, "I owe you one."

He smirked. "More than one."

True. They'd been through a lot. She owed him a lot. However, it was a proven fact of life that once you owed someone enough, it stopped mattering. People who truly care about you don't hold debts or grudges. They just hold faith.

Once they got into the next building, they stumbled upon a small contingent of fallen soldiers. Terra was saddened to see them, but she was at least able to salvage some thermal clips from their weapons to pop into her pistol. She avenged them as soon as they rounded the next corner. From there, it was a clear shot to the docks.

At first.

Reaper fire tore through a dreadnought nearly a mile away, an explosion with so much force that it tore through the supports on the scaffolding they were racing over, sending them both tumbling down three stories. Thankfully, it was more of a slide than a drop and they were able to recover quickly. Terra quickly went back to following Anderson to the docks and taking down any Reaper foot soldiers that happened to cross their path. When they finally reached their destination, though, they lost communication with the _Normandy_. As luck would have it, they stumbled across a pair of soldiers who were still alive after their gunship crashed. Terra and Anderson were able to help the two fall back and then head in to search the crash site for a radio.

That was where Terra first saw them. Bulbous, screeching monsters with rifles for arms. Even with the deformed silhouette, she only needed to see the four eyes to know what they were. The Reapers had been approaching the galaxy through batarian space. They must have hit there first. Part of her took this as confirmation that she had done the right thing destroying that relay and saving the colony from this fate, though the rest of her still had trouble justifying it by any means. All she knew for certain was that she owed it to the batarians to destroy these things. So she cut loose.

She put all her skills to use alongside Anderson to cut through the swarm of husks. No, not husks—Husks were the remains of humans (though the term was clearly about to become more generalized). These were something else. When Terra first saw one of them attempt to feast on the remains of one she had previously killed, bolstering its own defenses by doing so, she knew what they would have to be called. Cannibals.

She took special pleasure in pouncing on the last one and twisting its arm so it would shoot itself in the face. Then she stepped over its remains to reach the crash site.

Anderson was able to get the radio working while Terra found an extra rifle lying nearby (this one fully loaded—thank you, Alliance). The radio held up just long enough for them to send the _Normandy_ their coordinates before it also failed. Then, as if the Reapers had been listening in, the swarm of Cannibals they had felled was replaced with a horde. Terra and Anderson both quickly took cover and opened fire. They both decent enough shots to hold their ground, but they didn't have enough ammo to hold out forever. With every passing moment, they both were pleading harder for the _Normandy_ to hurry up.

The _Normandy_ never disappointed. Just as another wave came down, the frigate flew in from behind to open fire on the Cannibals and clear the dock. Even amongst all this devastation, Terra felt her hopes and joys swelling inside her at the sight of her beloved ship back in the sky, come to her rescue, free of every last touch of Cerberus and back in the hands of the Alliance. She didn't bother waiting for Anderson before racing up to leap onto the ramp opening from the docking bay.

Ashley was waiting, rifle at the ready to keep enemy fire off of the ship. "Welcome back."

Terra smiled. "Thanks." She stopped smiling when she turned back and saw Anderson slowing to a halt. "Come on!"

Anderson shook his head. "I'm not going. You saw those men back there. There's 1000 more like them. Someone needs to stay and help them."

Terra wasn't standing for that. "We're in this fight together, Anderson!"

"I have to do this, Shepard. Get to the Council, convince them to help us."

"What if they won't listen?!"

"Then make them listen! That's an order!"

She scoffed. "I don't take orders from you anymore, remember?"

He responded by taking something from his pocket… "Consider yourself reinstated…" …and throwing it to her. "…commander."

She caught it, finding it was her tags. Still marked for her. Like she'd never left. It felt right. Even if nothing else here did. Realizing there was no talking him out of this, though, she clutched the tags tight and stepped back. "I'll be back for you. And I'll bring every fleet I can. …good luck."

Anderson nodded. "You, too, Shepard."

So Terra stood down as the _Normandy_ pulled away. Before they closed the ramp to take off, her eyes drifted down to the city below. Evacuations had started by now. Shuttles filling with civilians racing to escape the Reapers' onslaught. Including the boy. She thought for certain he was looking up at her, hoping this ship would protect them, as he clutched his ears to drown out the sound of the Reapers' howls and hid away on a departing shuttle.

That was immediately shot down.

Mindoir was one thing. This was another. She couldn't hide how it all tore into her, couldn't escape how she felt like she was abandoning her people. But she had to stand for them where they couldn't stand for themselves. So she withdrew into the cargo bay and watched through the slowly closing ramp as they left Earth behind.

_And so begins the end._


	60. Mars

Chapter 60: Mars

Red like iron  
Red like blood  
Red like fire  
A world of war

James followed Terra through the cargo bay to the armory Ashley was standing at, peppering her with questions to demand what just happened. Every one hit her like a punch in the gut, reminding her what the answer was so hard that she couldn't deny it. She finally announced to both of her fellow marines that they were leaving.

James didn't take it well. "Then drop me off someplace, 'cause I ain't leaving!"

Terra could only take so much. "_Enough_! Don't you think I'd rather stay and fight?! We can't do it alone. We need to get to the Citadel and that's that."

James simply waved her off. He clearly wasn't satisfied.

Neither was Terra. She should've been. She was free of her confinement, restored to her status in the Alliance, back on the ship she adored—everything she'd been hoping for over the past six months. But Anderson had put his life on the line to protect Earth, under fire from the Reapers themselves, a sign that the monsters would soon be everywhere across the galaxy. She couldn't be satisfied until every last one of those robot squids was dead.

_"Commander," a familiar voice sounded over the PA, "can you hear me?"_

But she would take her joys where she could find them. "Joker? Is that you?"

_"Alive and kicking. We've got an emergency call coming in from Admiral Hackett."_

So the admiral was OK. She could safely maintain her hope. "Patch him through."

The connection was fairly scattered, but she was able to discern the most important patches of the conversation: Earth was about to officially be occupied by the invaders, so he was ordering the _Normandy_ to the Prothean Archives on Mars before they lost control of the system. From what she could hear, it sounded like Liara was there, so Terra didn't waste time ordering Joker to take them straight to the red planet that was less than an hour away by FTL.

"Mars?" Ashley asked even as they got ready, "What does he think we'll find there?"

"I don't know," Terra shrugged, "But if it's worth the detour to give us an edge over the Reapers, we need to move fast." With that, she opened the armor locker. There was her N7 armor, still in its place and in perfect shape for her use. She couldn't help a small smile as she took it. "Grab your gear."

They suited up and got in the shuttle. By the time they reached Mars, they were ready to move out. EDI was quick to inform them that they couldn't establish communications with the research outpost and a sandstorm was moving in that would interfere with their own COMMs. They would have to move fast. So Terra led Ashley and James through the LZ in the direction of the facility.

It wasn't long before they encountered a difficulty. In this case, the obstacle was a squad of Cerberus executing the Alliance personnel stationed there. Terra only needed to see this to get her blood boiling. She only gave Ashley and James two seconds of warning before she sniped down two of the troopers, bringing the rest to open fire.

"They know we're here now," James commented as he readied his weapon and joined in the assault.

The troopers didn't stand much chance against the three of them, at least not after they'd gotten the drop on them. Once it was clear, Ashley spoke up. "What's Cerberus doing here?"

"Good question," Terra agreed.

"You mean you don't know?"

Terra wasn't sure how to respond to that. "I was trying to track their operations for nearly a month and even EDI couldn't find what I needed. Why would I possibly know what they're up to now?"

"I didn't mean anything by it! I just think…you know, it's a pretty big coincidence."

After what happened on Horizon, Terra figured it was best to give her friend the benefit of the doubt. Given how sensitive this subject was to her, though, she couldn't deny that part of her resented the implication. Luckily, she was able to let out that frustration on the next group of troopers they stumbled across near the entrance. She told herself she would take out all her other frustrations and fears on any others they found inside, then she took the chance to investigate. "They didn't come here in force. Just a few vehicles."

"Must have had help from the inside," James said, "No way they could take the whole place otherwise."

Terra concurred before leading them into the entrance and activating the airlock.

While the door was sealing behind them, Ashley stowed her weapon and stepped up. "I'm sorry, Shepard, but I need a straight answer."

"Ash—!" Terra started.

"This is serious. I know you hate Cerberus on principle, but they still rebuilt you, gave you a ship, resources—"

Terra finally put her foot down. "Let me be perfectly clear about this. I never trusted Cerberus. I never worked with Cerberus. I took their help to take down the Collectors at first, but I cut ties halfway through the mission. I've not even had contact with them since the week I destroyed the Collector base, and I have no idea why they're here or what they want!"

James graciously intervened here. "Shepard's communications have been monitored ever since she came to Earth. The only contact she's had has been with Palaven, no one else. No way Cerberus is still behind her."

Ashley seemed to calm down and dismiss the thought now. Maybe it was the reminder from hearing Palaven still came first (or tied for first with the Alliance) in Terra's mind, maybe it was her conviction in defending her current stance, maybe it was simply because she finally saw Terra's side of Horizon. Whatever the reason, she sighed. "I'm sorry, Shepard. It's just—"

Before she could finish, the elevator finished pressurizing, allowing them to remove their helmets. Terra did so first, shaking out her loose ponytail over her left shoulder and her bangs over her right eye. Then she turned to look Ashley in the eye and say it plain: "You of all people should know what I really stand for, Ash."

The conversation didn't get the chance to continue before they entered the facility itself. The elevator had arrived only one second before they began to hear things moving nearby. No sooner had they taken cover from what they could tell was gunfire from the vents than a vent overhead was kicked open. A certain asari dropped down from the vent and then threw a biotic field up after her, capturing the two Cerberus troopers chasing her in a Singularity and leaving them vulnerable to two decisive shots from her pistol. And then a few more just to make sure they stayed down.

Terra smiled as she realized who it was. She stood up, holding up her hand when James attempted to take aim. "Easy there, lieutenant. She's with us."

At the sound of her voice, the asari turned to face her with a smile. "Shepard!"

"Liara," Terra smiled back, hugging her.

Liara sighed. "I was worried when the reports came in." She stepped back, giving her former commander a look of sympathy and concern. "They hit Earth hard?"

Ashley walked over, saddened by the reminder. "Yeah. It was hard to leave like that."

Liara turned her sympathetic gaze to her. "Ashley. I'm sorry."

Ashley simply nodded.

"We were told you might have some answers for us," Terra finally said.

Liara smirked. "I do."

"Hallelujah!" James exclaimed as they followed Liara to the window, "Some answers! Finally!"

"I was contacted by Admiral Hackett," Liara explained, "He wanted me to use my resources as—" She caught herself when she remembered Ashley and James were there. "—as an information broker…" Terra smirked knowingly. "…to track down some information on holding off the Reapers. I think we found a way to stop them in the Prothean Archives."

For the first time, Terra didn't feel afraid to let her hopes rise. "You found something? What is it?"

"Plans for a device. A blueprint."

Not much, but still more than they had when they arrived. "Then we need to get to it before Cerberus does."

"So it's a race to the Archives—" James concurred.

He was cut off when another Cerberus squad arrived, attempting to break through the door.

Terra quickly readied her rifle. "We got trouble."

"Bring it on," James smirked.

Having now seen him in action, Terra would have liked to keep him around, but her strategic side demanded otherwise. "Not this time, James."

"What?!"

"If Cerberus gets past us, I need you guarding the exits."

"But—"

"_Now_, lieutenant!"

James saw now why most people never argued with the commander. He quickly went back to the elevator and let her send him back down.

Terra, Ashley, and Liara were all able to find cover, but the Cerberus squad still had the higher ground. That was easily resolved with the same tactic Liara had just used on the ones in the vent, a Singularity pulling them from their cover to an exposed position so Terra and Ashley could snipe them down. Once it was clear, they were able to climb up to the newly opened door and head through. There was another small contingent of Cerberus troopers in the next room, but Terra was able to duck down out of side under a rail long enough to sneak around, pull one of them down from over the rail, and then slam her omni-blade down into his chest.

She _really_ loved this new gadget.

All the way through the facility, they were met with troopers trying to slow them down. Not to mention signs of the brutality with which they had taken the facility. Cerberus claimed to stand for humanity and yet they had assaulted and decimated an entire human outpost to steal the one thing that might save Earth? Terra already despised them. Now she wanted to track down every last one of them, tear them apart with her bare hands, and stomp on their graves for good measure.

On the other hand, Liara, Terra couldn't help but note, seemed to be blaming herself. She wouldn't have buried that three years ago, but she was burying it now, focusing on the task at hand. It was admirable given the circumstances, but not healthy in the long run. Terra was going to have to talk to her. She started to reach this conclusion when they had to disable a security terminal and starting seeing footage of what had happened, including of one Dr. Eva Coré who had arrived about a week ago. No one but Terra would've seen the tension in Liara's stance or the guilt behind her eyes. _Not for long,_ she told herself before leading her friends onwards.

When they went outside to cross to the next section of the facility, things got more complicated, as things were wont to do. Not only was Cerberus already moving across to the Archives, but the sandstorm was also getting closer. Terra attempted to contact James and tell him to be prepared to watch their back only for his signal to drop and finally cut out. She couldn't reestablish the connection or link to the _Normandy_. They were on their own until the storm cleared up.

The next area they came to was the last straw where Terra was concerned. Some Cerberus goon had cut power to the area and disabled the airlocks with half the facility's personnel inside. Terra was ready to rip someone's spine out when suddenly the shutters on the observation deck opened. Terra was angry, not stupid, so she quickly turned off her flashlight and hunkered down, leading Liara and Ashley to follow suit while they waited for a chance at a sneak attack. Terra listened to the conversation the Cerberus troopers were having for a moment, listened for a chance…

"Should we open the windows?"

"No! Not unless you wanna decompress this room, too!"

…oh, really?

On second thought, Terra smirked viciously and fired a grenade right through the window. The Cerberus troopers were unfortunately wearing helmets, but they were still too startled to react and thrown off-balance by the rooms attempting to equilibrate. Half of them were caught in the blast, leaving the rest open to simple gunfire. All of them were down in less than ten seconds.

"Well played, Shepard," Ashley smirked as they jumped through the windows to the next security terminal.

Liara restrained her own impressed reaction, instead heading over to re-pressurize the room. They were almost cleared to proceed when they discovered a vid of what had happened.

What had happened was that Dr. Eva had shot the security officers and then hacked the system to cut the power.

Liara had been hiding it well, but now even Ashley could tell she was shaken by guilt and self-doubt. Once Terra finally nodded to Ashley to let her handle it, Liara turned to lean resignedly against the table. "I should've known the moment I met her. I was just so focused on finding a way to stop the Reapers…"

"Stopping the Reapers is what we _should_ be focused on," Terra pointed out, "If we don't, none of this even matters."

Liara sighed. "I know." She turned to Terra. "How do you do it? How do you carry everything at times like this?"

"Honestly? I don't do it alone. I have people I can count on behind me. And if that's not enough, I find purpose in thinking about what I would lose if I fail."

Liara shook her head. "That's a terrible burden."

"It is. But it's one I don't mind bearing."

That was why Liara admired and respected her. She just wished she could live up to it so easily.

"Come on. We need to move fast."

Liara nodded and returned to leading them through to the next area, the one where they could call a tram to take them across to the Archives.

Guilt and self-doubt were one thing. A turret aimed right at them was quite another.

"Is that the _only_ way in?!" Ashley demanded.

"It's the only way I know of!" Liara responded.

Terra groaned as she worked out how they could proceed. It looked like there was cover along a clear path around the corner, but they would have to time their movements carefully. "We'll have to skirt around, stay low!"

Ashley nodded. "I'll go first!"

They moved in short bursts. First Ashley, then Terra, then Liara. Whoever was moving draw its attention long enough for the others to get in position to trade cover, an act through which Terra at least got to practice her combat rolls. Once they were around the corner, the turret lost line of sight on them, giving them free reign to wander into the security room and shoot every last Cerberus trooper within in the head.

After they had cleared the room, however, they naturally hit another complication. "They shut down the system," Liara told them, "I can't call a tram from here."

"Maybe we don't have to," Ashley said thoughtfully, "We could find a short-range transmitter, helmet-to-helmet, and convince them we're one of their squads and the Alliance forces have been taken care of."

Terra smirked. "I like it. See what you can find."

Liara watched Ashley leave.

Terra noticed. "What?"

Liara sighed. "The lieutenant-commander has become quite capable."

Terra simply nodded, thinking back to how things had been on the SR-1. "Yeah." After taking a moment to check her weapons, she followed Ashley out to check on her progress.

Ashley was fiddling with the armor on one of the Cerberus troopers' corpses. "He's got a transmitter in his helmet. If I can…" Suddenly, the helmet opened, the sight within enough to make her recoil with a groan of horror and disgust. "He looks like a Husk!"

Terra looked for herself. The lifeless eyes had the same cybernetic glow, veins blackened and wiry with a fluorescent purple glow. Her reaction made Ashley's look mild. "I knew they were heartless, but this is sickening."

Ashley looked between the body and Terra. "That…that could've been you, Shepard. For all I knew…"

Terra would've been appalled that Ashley dared to compare her to this abomination. But the fact was that there had been a time she had thought the same thing, that Cerberus had used their monopoly on her body to change her, and it was only when Chakwas gave her a head-to-toe scan that confirmed her cybernetics were clean that she believed Miranda had actually refrained. Garrus had shared her concerns, even Tali had. It was only Joker and Liara and technically Wrex who had looked at her the same way. She couldn't blame Ashley for fearing what might have happened and letting that fear drive her actions. It certainly explained why her actions on Horizon had been so forceful. If they were going to be working together again, Terra was going to have to address this now. "They didn't, Ash. I made sure of it. I'm still me. They wanted me exactly the way I was." She smirked. "That's what came back to bite them."

Ashley smirked briefly. "Yeah. I guess so. I'm sorry, I just…I still have to get used to this."

Terra nodded. "I know. Take all the time you need. We're still friends. …I'm right here."

Ashley nodded back and stepped to the side.

So Terra took the transmitter and made use of it. "Hello, this is…Delta Team. Anybody there?"

_"Where have you been?! Never mind, what's your status?"_

"We're at the terminal, waiting for extraction. All hostiles terminated."

_"Copy that. We're on our way."_

Ashley smirked conspiratorially. "Think they bought it?"

Terra smirked back. "We'll know soon enough."

They had. They regretted it immediately. Every Cerberus soldier on the tram fell to gunfire and biotics from three different angles, leaving the tram open for Terra and her friends to hop on and ride across. Their path was delayed when an explosive broke the tram line and caused their transport to stop moving until another could come their way with Cerberus reinforcements, but all that happened was that Terra hopped across onto the other tram to retaliate. The last one standing survived so long solely by the grace of his shield, so Terra placed her foot under it and kicked it forward with enough force that it would've knocked him in the face had he not been wearing a helmet and still served to unbalance him long enough for her to grab it through the slot and slam it into him with enough force that he tumbled out onto the red sands below. It was then a simple case of commandeering the tram to carry them the rest of the way. The last of the Cerberus forces were positioned outside the Archives themselves to bar the way. It was the hardest fight yet where this mission was concerned, but Terra wasn't letting them get in her way. Liara destabilized them for Ashley to wear them down and then Terra charged in to unleash all her inner rage on every single one she could reach. In no time at all, the opposition was defeated and they had reached their destination.

Looking at the Archives, Terra was immediately reminded of the Prothean beacons that had incited all of this. Liara was able to access the contents through a console rather than a Cipher, but it was clearly meant to function the same way, storing information for organic access. Terra couldn't help but wonder what all was contained within this device that she could learn from but that no one else could see.

Judging by what happened next, she would never get an answer. _"Shepard."_

That voice drew her and Liara both to draw their guns and take aim at it, only to find it was a holo-comm.

But it was still the Illusive Man. _"An amazing race, the Protheans. They left all this knowledge. But we've squandered it."_

Terra scoffed. "I hope you're not planning to try 'talking me down' like on the Collector Base. Unlike you, I actually care what happens to the Reapers' victims."

_"See, that's where we differ, Shepard. Where you see a means to destroy, I see a means to control. To dominate and harness the Reapers' power."_

No matter how much she disliked him, this was the first time she thought he was genuinely insane. "Earth is under siege with the rest of the galaxy soon to follow, and you're hatching a scheme to enslave the Reapers?!"

_"I wouldn't expect you to understand. You've always been shortsighted."_

"And you've always been a selfish racist, but I didn't let my feelings compromise my people's safety!"

_He waved her off. "Arguing is pointless. …I already have what you're looking for."_

No sooner had he said so than Liara saw for herself. "Shepard! The data isn't here! It's being erased!"

_The Illusive Man smirked as if he had won. "Goodbye, Shepard." Then he disappeared._

Terra was about to lose it. "How is he doing it?!"

"It's local," Liara explained, "There's someone else in the system."

As if on cue, that was when they heard a struggle across the room. Ashley, who had been securing the perimeter, was thrown back from a security terminal as Dr. Eva herself raced out of it. "SHE'S GOT THE DATA!"

That was all Terra needed to hear to run as fast as her cybernetics could carry her. Somehow, the Cerberus doctor was able to match her speed, but she was too determined not to keep up. The doctor tried to throw obstacles in their path by closing doors, knocking things over, and sending out incineration attacks, but Terra was able to maneuver around all of them. Ashley and Liara were keeping up, but not fast enough to help overtake their target. All Terra could do was push harder to get close enough to tackle her, all the while attempting to reestablish contact with James and the _Normandy_ so they could get help pinning her down. The sandstorm was still creating too much interference, but she was finally able to catch up when they reached the roof.

Until a Cerberus shuttle flew in, Dr. Eva diving aboard so it could immediately fly away.

"NO!" Terra stopped when she realize she couldn't jump on after them, instead turning desperately to her COMM, "James! _Normandy_! ANYBODY!"

She finally got a response when a shuttle began to fly in. _"I got this one!" James' voice came over the COMM._ The Alliance shuttle dove for the Cerberus shuttle, slamming straight into it and knocking it back onto the roof in a fiery crash. James quickly landed and got out to help Terra, Ashley, and Liara start searching.

Just as Ashley was helping Liara start moving, though, the Cerberus shuttle's door began to rattle, finding flying off to reveal Dr. Eva standing in the flames. A robot. Ashley quickly pushed Liara out of harm's way and readied her gun.

Only for the robot to disarm her, grab her by the helmet, and begin slamming into her the remains of the shuttle.

"ASH!" Terra moved without thinking, drawing her pistol and opening fire. One shot to the robot's wrist drew its attention and made it drop Ashley but also caused it to start charging at her. So she emptied her clip on its head until it finally collapsed. She wanted to tear the thing apart, but it still had the data they needed, so she instead told James to grab it while she doubled back for Ashley.

The _Normandy_ left Mars just as the Reapers began to move in. EDI and Liara were able to recover enough of the data for them to consider the mission a success and head for the Citadel, but Terra couldn't call it a success. Ashley was unresponsive. The entire Sol System was lost.

How much more were they going to lose?


	61. Return, Relive, Rewrite

Chapter 61: Return, Relive, Rewrite

I long journeyed home  
In the darkness alone  
To see the lights that I longed to reclaim  
But once I recovered  
I too soon discovered  
The lights that I knew were a flame

Meeting with the Council went about as well as it usually did. Even with the plans for the device in hand, they were more concerned about guarding their own borders than restoring Earth's. Terra could understand their fear, but it wasn't fair. None of it. She knew just how bad it was when she realized that she was actually _agreeing with Udina_. Or maybe it was that he was agreeing with her (which was also alarming) that they needed to stand together at times like this and she was subsequently following his frustration that the plea was being ignored.

"They're too scared to look out for anyone but themselves," Udina scoffed.

"Our people are scared," the turian councilor corrected as he stepped into Udina's office, "And we're looking out for them the best we know how."

Terra turned her attention to him. If he was coming to see them in person, it meant he was about to help them.

He stepped closer. "I don't know if you've heard yet, Shepard. The Reapers assaulted Taetrus a few days ago. They're encroaching on Palaven space right now."

She felt her blood run cold, like those words had drained all the fire from her veins. She had hoped Palaven would have time while Earth was the primary target. If the Reapers were already hitting it… "Do…do you know if the evacuation procedures worked?"

"Unfortunately, no. So far, all we've heard is that the primarch has called a war summit and our army is attempting to hold on Menae. Hopefully, it'll buy some time for our civilians to be extracted, but with the numbers the Reapers are using…it's unlikely most of them will be able to reach the relay unless action is taken."

She couldn't forget that Earth needed her, but she refused to stand down if Palaven was in danger. "I'll take it. What do you need me to do?"

He almost smirked. "I should have known you would not hesitate. I came to tell you there might be a way to get both of us what we want. If Primarch Fedorian is extracted and the war summit takes place, it could aid your efforts to unite us and protect the hierarchy long enough to establish efforts to in turn protect Palaven."

Bypass the Council entirely _and_ have a grateful primarch on her side. She liked it. "I'll take the _Normandy_ now."

"Of course. Good luck."

So Terra immediately recalled everyone to the _Normandy_ and set the course for Menae. While they were preparing to set off, she went around checking on the crew. It was good to see Joker, Chakwas, Adams, Daniels, and Donnelly back in their proper places. It was good to be back in her own. It was also nice to see Liara setting up shop in the XO office, restoring her Shadow Broker operations complete with info drone (which was now named Glyph, something Terra found oddly adorable). Everything was how she would want it to be for what was coming.

Until she tried to sleep. She figured since they had a few hours before they would arrive and Palaven would be better served if she was well-rested that she should try to get some rest while she could. She didn't sleep well. Nightmares plagued her. The horror that was leaving Earth while her people screamed in the streets below. What she hoped wouldn't await her adopted people now that the Reapers were hitting the Apien Crest. And through it all, the boy she failed to save. She could only shake it off by telling herself that she was about to avenge all of it.

When they finally started to deploy to Menae, Liara and James behind her, she felt like she was back in her nightmares. One look out at Palaven through the view-screen nearly sent her to her knees with devastation. The strongest military in the galaxy and the Reapers were obliterating it. Even from here, she could see Cipritine aflame. It was worse than the raid on Mindoir, maybe even worse than Earth to her. James apparently hadn't known the specifics of her relationship with the turians, prompting Liara to quietly explain how Terra had been adopted by the Vakarians 16 years ago between sympathetic looks at the commander in question. Terra managed to hold herself together outwardly, but she was falling apart inside as her eyes stayed glue to the screen.

"Commander!" Cortez the shuttle pilot finally called, snapping her out of it, "LZ's getting swarmed!"

That did it. In an instant, her sorrow turned to outrage. "Open the hatch." Nobody tried to argue, James silently opening the hatch in question as they approached the landing zone to give Terra a clear view of their opposition. Husks everywhere. Not for long. She started by sniping them down, taking three of them in as many seconds, then lobbing a grenade into the middle of the swarm. The few that survived scattered. It didn't save them. Before the shuttle even stopped moving, Terra leaped through the hatch and dropped on one of the husks, striking with such force that the remains of its spine snapped beneath her feet as she turned to take down the last few with pistol headshots. "Clear!"

Liara and James eyed her cautiously as they followed her off, as if they were afraid one wrong step would set her off again.

That was pretty much true. Terra wanted to rip every molecule from every last abomination that had dared to set foot on her beloved world. Both her peoples were suffering. The _things_ responsible for that were going to _pay_.

They didn't have far to go to get to the turian encampment. Once they were inside, it was easy to find the man in charge. "Commander Shepard, General Corinthus," the turian introduced himself, "We heard you were on your way."

"I've come to get Primarch Fedorian," she affirmed.

He froze. After a second of silence, he regained his composure and said the last thing she wanted to hear: "Primarch Fedorian is dead. His shuttle was shot down an hour ago when it tried to leave the moon."

Under any other circumstances, Terra would've taken the news in stride and been upset about it later. Right now, she wanted to throw something and only by the grace of Liara's silent intervention managed to contain herself. "I'm sorry. I hear he was a good man."

"And a friend. He would've made an outstanding diplomat."

"Now what?" James sighed.

"We'll have to change the plan," Terra said, wondering how many times she'd said that by now, "The hierarchy has a very clear line of succession. We just have to find the new primarch."

"That may prove difficult," Corinthus responded, "We have too many casualties to keep track of. Palaven Command would know, but our COMM tower is down. We can't reach them."

Terra didn't bother asking permission before mobilizing. "Keep your hand on the dial. We'll be back when COMMs are fixed."

She led Liara and James through the side barricade and around to the COMM tower to find it surrounded by husks. They went down all too easily. Terra tried to fix the main panel, but the problem was hardware rather than software, meaning James had to climb up and patch it physically while she and Liara held the perimeter. Liara basically kept up crowd control while Terra returned to ripping through the husks in such a way that the mightiest krogan would bow in respect. It was only when the husks stopped coming and she received contact from Corinthus that COMMs were restored that she calmed down and led her squad back into the garrison.

"As you said," Corinthus informed them when they arrived, "succession is usually simple. But right now, the hierarchy's in chaos. So many dead or MIA…"

"I don't care how far we have to dig," Terra retorted, "Palaven needs a leader and Earth needs help."

"Sounds like you could use a hand yourself."

Just the sound of that voice made her freeze. She finally brought herself to face it. The second she saw him standing there, she ran to throw her arms around him.

Garrus smiled as he returned the embrace. "I missed you, too."

She hadn't realized until now how worried she was for him specifically, how she had been suppressing the fear that he was somewhere down in that chaos and she might not even find him. Now that he was here…

"Ahem!"

Oh. Right. Mission. She quickly stepped back and noticed James looking at them curiously. "Sorry. This is Garrus Vakarian."

To his credit, James recognized the name. "Oh. I see."

She smirked as she turned to Garrus. "This is James Vega."

Garrus nodded with a polite "Lieutenant." Though Terra was able to tell he was eying James with a very small measure of resentment for his unfortunate position and a much less small measure of gratitude for buying them time in Vancouver when he had come by to deliver the news of his mother's passing. Rather than dealing with that complex reaction, Garrus shelved it for later and turned to greet Liara much more amicably. "Good to see you, too."

Liara smiled as she stepped up. "Good to see you in one piece, Garrus."

"What are you doing up here?" Terra asked him, "I thought you were organizing the defenses on Palaven."

"That's why I'm here," Garrus answered, "If we lose this moon, we lose Palaven." He smirked. "Apparently, I'm an expert advisor now."

Terra smirked back. "Sounds about right to me."

He clearly disagreed, but he knew better than to argue with her when she was complimenting him, so he focused on the issue at hand. "Corinthus filled me in. We know who we're after."

"The new primarch," Corinthus stepped back in, "is General Adrien Victus."

"Victus?" Liara asked curiously, "His name's crossed my desk."

Terra thought the name sounded familiar, but it wasn't one she was familiar with. Instead, she turned to Garrus. "You know him?"

"I was with him this morning," Garrus nodded, "He's a good general, really popular with his troops. Not so popular with military command, though. Has a reputation for playing loose with accepted strategy."

Terra couldn't help but be curious. "What do you mean?"

"On Taetrus, during the uprisings," Liara explained, "his team discovered a salarian spy ring about the same time the turian separatists did. Rather than neutralize the ring, he fell back. He even gave up valuable fortifications, which the rebels took."

"Then," Garrus continued for her, "when both groups had worn each other down, he moved back in and took them out. Didn't lose a man."

Terra smirked. "Bold, clever, and loyal. Sounds like just what we need."

_"Commander!" her COMM suddenly flared to life, "Come in! We've got a situation back here!"_

She quickly stepped aside. "Can this wait, Joker? We're in the middle of a warzone!"

_"The _Normandy_'s going haywire—shutting down systems, charging up weapons. I can't find the source."_

Bad news. She didn't like the thought of anything being wrong with her precious ship. "We need the _Normandy_ at the ready in case we need to bug out."

"Should I go back and take a look?" Liara offered.

Terra was hesitant to send Liara back if they might need biotic support, but the asari had gained a lot of technical knowledge recently that could prove invaluable and the ship needed all the help it could get. "Do it." Once Liara was racing off, Terra turned her attention to Garrus. "You said you were Victus this morning?"

"Yeah, but we got separated," Garrus nodded, "He went to bolster a flank that was breaking, could be anywhere by now."

"We're trying to raise him, commander," Corinthus said.

That was when a roar resounded through the air. Not the ominous, intense trill of the Reapers, though it did seem like a smaller version of such, a ringing screech like 1000 birds of prey.

"Incoming Harvester!" James shouted, "Headed for the airfield!"

Terra looked up. Harvesters were the Reapers' equivalent of a drop-ship—terrifying, hulking beasts that flew in to throw down foot soldiers and shoot down artillery—formed from corruptions of the actual harvesters that dropped klixen on hostile worlds. The entire garrison shot at this one and barely winged it before it could drop its payload in the airfield. She wasn't letting that stand. "General, tell Victus we'll rendezvous here. We're going to take care of whatever that thing dropped off." So she turned to her turian with a smile. "You coming, Garrus?"

He merely readied his rifle. "Are you kidding? I'm right behind you."

Just like that, she felt like herself again. The sorrow and rage was still boiling inside her, but it was buried beneath the joy at having her mate back with her and the calm assurance that all of her feelings were known and shared by someone who loved her despite it all. Whatever the Reapers were about to throw their way, she could face it with him beside her. So she went straight to the airfield to face it.

The general Husks formed from her own people were nothing to her now, though she couldn't help but notice Garrus' rising hostility towards them. It was what came next that threatened to overwhelm her.

"Is it just me," James asked, "or do those Reaper troops look like turians?"

…they did. The harvest had started. The Reapers were putting her adopted people through it, desecrating their remains and turning them against the very people most of them had fought for…

Marauders. She was going to tear them all apart.

The Marauders (what else could they call them?) were clearly the tactical brains in the Reapers' units. They had shields, maneuverability, and firepower. If they turned their back on the things for five seconds, one of them would start giving the Husks armor just to strengthen their offensive. Terra didn't give most of them a chance to try. She shot down half of them with astonishing ferocity and then pounced on the last one standing, turning its own weapon on it to deal the final blow. If Corinthus hadn't called to tell them the main barricade was under fire, she didn't know if she could've calmed down. Instead, she raced back, James and Garrus right behind her, and climbed straight up to the barricade.

There was a turret on this one. Like she wasn't using that.

The Husks came in a swarm, but since Terra, James, and Garrus had the high ground, it was a killing field. In no time, they were using the Reapers' shock troopers as target practice.

"Alright, who's next?!" Garrus smirked.

"I'm just warming up!" James followed suit, "Maybe I can do three at a time!"

"Look out!" Terra called, "Here comes another wave!"

"Yeah, like fish in a barrel!"

"What?!" Garrus asked.

"Old human saying! Like fish! In! A barrel!"

"I'll explain later!" Terra promised with a weary sigh.

With every shot, they started to feel victorious. Deep down, each of them could feel the bond of battle companions growing. Not so deep down, Terra and Garrus took split seconds to cast meaningful looks to each other, already longing for when the fight was over and they could probably have their reunion.

Then, just as the Husks started to clear, the true threat appeared. Jumping in from nowhere and landing with such force that the barricade shook, throwing all three of them down into the field below and right into its sights, stood a massive creature with a claw-like hand and what was clearly a turian head. The mere sight of the thing was unnatural and disturbing. The prospect of fighting it seemed intimidating but manageable.

Then it charged.

Terra thought fast, pushing Garrus out of the way of the charge and prodding James to dive the other way. Once they were clear for a moment, she drew her rifle, incendiary ammo at the ready and opened fire. Its armor was tough, but between her fire rounds, Garrus' armor-piercing headshots, and James' carnage-inducing volleys, they were able to subdue it. It didn't go down easy, but it went down the same as all the others. The downside being that Terra just barely managed being gored by its claw as it collapsed right in front of her. The bigger they are, after all.

Once it was clear, they only had enough time to check that no one was injured before their COMMs sounded again. _"Commander," General Corinthus came through, "we can't raise Primarch Victus."_

Terra sighed. She should've expected it wouldn't be that simple. "Understood. Hold your positions, keep your men safe. We'll find him." She disconnected and turned to Garrus. "Where was he when you last saw him?"

"This way," Garrus nodded, turning to lead them down the path, "Shouldn't be too far unless we find trouble."

She scoffed. "We always do."

They did, in fact, encounter a few Husks along the way, but Terra could see they weren't responsible for the tension Garrus was expertly hiding. She figured he was probably dealing with the same woes she was facing, but she still finally asked if he was OK.

He might've tried asserting that he was, but he couldn't hide it from her. "Of course I'm not. Look at Palaven! I can see where I was born blazing from here!"

"You still have family down there?" James asked.

Garrus nodded. "My dad. A sister."

Terra immediately reacted. "They didn't make it to the evac shuttles?!"

"I don't know. Maybe they got through in time. But the Reapers got here so quickly…and they hit Cipritine first and hardest."

Right by where Castis and Solana lived. "Right where the evacuation procedures were centered."

Garrus sighed solemnly, shaking his head at the horrible thought he was trying to avoid. "It was like they knew."

Terra felt responsible for that. She and Garrus had pushed for the most populated areas to be the first responders for the evacuations, trying to get as many out as possible. They knew that was where the Reapers would likely target first, so they should've known time would be too limited. They should've…but they couldn't, could they? How do you predict something so unlike anything else you know? Something utterly unknowable? Whatever they had done, the Reapers would've found a way around it. Maybe all their attempts to prepare had been for nothing.

No. She wouldn't let that happen. It was too late to save the fallen, but they could all be avenged. She had lost too much already. She wasn't losing now.

It wasn't far before they stumbled across a contingent of soldiers. Some of them were wounded, but they all seemed to be holding up. Garrus asked if they'd seen Victus, and the soldiers pointed them south. So they headed on. And soon came within a meter of a crashing flier that had been taken down by a Harvester. The squad was fine, but the crash had no survivors. Terra was feeling even more helpless and angry with every step. She hated it, all of it, and she just wanted to shoot something.

She got her wish when they reached the garrison and found it under siege. "Move it! No Reaper's taking this primarch!"

They raced into the garrison as one, ready for anything. It was a simple fight at first, mostly Cannibals with a few Marauders. Slowly, it got worse, as if every body they dropped summoned three more, which culminated in two of the large ones that could best be described as Brutes. The turian soldiers were laying down covering fire for them, but the sheer numbers being thrown against them, not to mention the armored monstrosities charging at them from two different directions, was too much. Terra was about ready to charge in and shotgun a Cannibal when it struck back so hard that it knocked her over. On the ground, though, her eyes caught sight of something that might help.

"Everybody get down!" Terra quickly called into her COMM. After James and Garrus responded by ducking down behind cover, the turians around them already behind barricades, Terra picked up the heavy weapon she'd located and fired it. The explosion took out both of the Brutes and most of the Marauders, returning the rest of the fight to a simple shootout that they easily won. When they had a chance to catch their breath, Terra looked down at the gun she'd used and found it was an actual Reaper Blackstar. "…these guys really shouldn't just leave their weapons lying around like that." With a scoff, she tossed the empty weapon aside and went straight for the command post. "General Victus?"

A turian general stepped down, giving her a curious look as he holstered his gun. "Yes?"

"Commander Terra Shepard."

"Ah, commander. I've heard of you. It's a pleasure to meet the human who claims Palaven as her home." Before Terra could respond, he caught sight of Garrus. "Vakarian! Where'd you go?"

Garrus gave him a look. "Heavy Reaper unit on the right flank? I believe your exact words were 'Get that thing off of my men!'"

"…appreciate it."

Terra suppressed the urge to smirk, focusing on why she had come. "I'm sorry, general, but we need you to come with us."

Victus looked at her sharply. "It's going to take something beyond important for me to leave our turian brothers and sisters in their fight."

"Fedorian killed," Garrus said, "…you're the new primarch."

"We need you immediately," Terra added, "to chair a summit to unite the Council races against the Reapers."

Victus seemed shocked. He finally stepped past them, looking up at his home-world contemplatively. "…_I'm_ primarch of Palaven? Negotiating for the turian hierarchy?"

Terra could sympathize with his position. Still, the only answer she had was a simple "Yes."

Victus shook his head as he turned to face her again. "I've spent my life in the military. I'm no diplomat. I _hate_ diplomats."

"We don't need a politician," Terra retorted, "We need someone who can stand for Palaven, someone who has his people's best interest at heart, someone who can give the rest of the galaxy hope for victory."

Victus slowly began to smile. "I like that. You're right."

"But we also need someone who realizes we need to work together. Earth is twice as far gone as Palaven, and I doubt the difference will last. When the Reapers start spreading to asari space, to salarian space, to our peoples' colonies… We can't let this be our end. We need an alliance. And any alliance we make _needs_ the turians."

Victus took a moment to process her words. Then he seemed to realize there was no choice and nodded. "Give me a moment to say goodbye to my men."

Terra stood aside and left him to it.

Garrus followed her, shaking his head. "Without him down here, there's a good chance we lose this moon."

She sighed sadly. "I know. But without him up there, there's a good chance we lose _everything_."

"…I can't do this, Terra. Look at that!" He gestured pointedly to the Reaper perched on the other side of the moon, the fires igniting in a chain reaction across the Palaven surface, the battle raging in the space between as turian ships were obliterating in droves. "Failed C-Sec officer, failed vigilante, and everyone's looking to me for how to stop it?!"

"Don't talk like that!" Terra immediately turned on him, "You're not a failure. You try. When no one else does, you take the risk. If it doesn't work, it's not because of you. None of us is doing this alone." She reached over to take his hand. "Not even me."

Garrus sighed. "Do you really think we can win this thing, Terra?"

"…I don't know. But I'm never gonna stop trying either."

In a strange way, that was the answer he needed to hear. Or maybe he just needed to hear her answer it at all. She gave him hope when nothing else could. And not just because he loved her. Because of who she was and what she stood for. "If anyone can do it…you can." He smiled as he looked at her. "And I'm gonna be there when you do."

She smiled back. "Wouldn't have it any other way."

They stood there, holding hands and each other's gaze, until Victus came back. If he noticed the way they were acting around each other, he didn't say anything. Given he already knew of her past, though, it was likely he already knew.

"You ready to go?" Terra asked.

"Yes," Victus answered, "but I have a condition. I appreciate your need for our fleets, commander, but I can't spare them. Not while our world is burning. But if the pressure could be taken off of Palaven…"

"I have every intention of helping Palaven in any way I can, sir, but how are we supposed to draw the Reapers off of it in time?"

"We need the krogan. I can't see us winning this thing without them."

Terra couldn't either. Yet the suggestion felt like the biggest obstacle she'd hit so far. The krogan hated the turians and were too proud to admit they would ever need allies in a battle. If anyone but Wrex was in charge, she would think the prospect was impossible. Even with Wrex in command, she knew it would be difficult. Good thing she didn't shy away from difficulty. And she would face anything to stop this.

Garrus smirked as if he could see all of these thoughts rising within her. "Looks like this summit just got a lot more interesting."


	62. Awakenings

Chapter 62: Awakenings

Long may we rest in dreamless sleep  
To escape a fate far darker  
But when we wake from a slumber so deep  
An escape may prove much farther

Terra was in the process of coming out of the COMM room and grumbling that the asari, who she had been counting on to help mediate this summit with her, were not coming to the negotiations at all after hearing of their new addition to the talks. She had just finished setting Primarch Victus up in the war room (and she may have been smiling, touched that even Victus had apparently heard Garrus "speak highly" of her) when things went wrong. The technical difficulties the ship had been dealing with while they were on Menae suddenly resulted in EDI going completely offline. Terra immediately raced down to the AI core to see what was happening. "EDI, talk to me!"

The last thing she would've expected happened. "Is there a particular topic you wish to discuss, Shepard?" The answer didn't come from the PA's or even the console by the door. It came from a synthetic body striding lithely up to her.

Terra blinked in shock. "_EDI_?!"

"Yes."

"You're…inside the Cerberus bot?"

"Not all of me, but I have control of it. It was not a seamless transition."

"Clearly! You blacked out on us!"

"I was attempting to extract information on the Prothean device, but a backup power source and CPU activated. I was finally able to erase the previous intelligence and transfer my own systems into its place. During this process, this unit…struggled. Hence the fire."

Terra groaned. "EDI, you need to warn us about situations like this."

The body EDI was newly occupying gave a gesture similar to a shrug. "Any attempts to help would have been limited by reaction time."

Terra figured there wasn't much point in arguing the matter and instead turned to looking over the body. "So…if you're…_in there_…are you still in the ship?"

"My primary functions are reserved inside this core," EDI answered, gesturing to the processors around them, "For optimal control, this unit should remain within the _Normandy_'s broadcast or tight beam range."

Terra gave EDI a confused look. "Are you planning to take that body somewhere?"

"This unit possesses enhanced combat capabilities and resistance to small firearms, as well as a mobility that would allow it to accompany you to places the _Normandy_ cannot reach."

Terra's confusion turned to astonishment as she saw what the AI meant. "You mean you can come with us on missions?!"

"Yes."

"That…well, that would be amazing, but you should probably check this thing doesn't have any more surprises for us."

"Agreed. I will run diagnostics." She cocked her head for a moment. "Complete. If you like, I could send you a full report. In the meantime, I should take this body up to the bridge. Jeff will want to see it."

Terra couldn't help smirking after EDI had left the room. "On that, we can agree." But thinking of Joker's inevitable flirting with the AI made her think of someone else. With a smile, she made her way out of the med bay and around to the battery. She smiled even brighter to see her turian off to the side, tinkering with the wiring in the Thanix cannon. "Wasted no time getting back to work, I see."

Garrus smiled just at the sound of her voice before stepping back to look at her. "After what I've been through lately, calibrating a giant gun is a vacation."

They had both been through a lot. But she hadn't come to be reminded of that. She'd come to see him. Her mate back with her, for good this time if she had anything to say about it. "As long as you don't work yourself too hard," she commented slyly, absentmindedly fingering her necklace.

He watched every move she made raptly. She had been a key feature of his life for 16 years. He didn't know how he went one day without seeing her. "I've missed you."

He'd said it already, but that didn't make hearing it any less meaningful. Now that she was free to respond to it on her own terms, she smiled almost tearfully. "I've _needed you_."

He moved closer, taking her hand. "There wasn't a minute that went by where you weren't somehow on my mind."

She leaned closer, taking his other hand. "I've been going crazy not seeing you."

He laid his head on hers, drawing her closer. "When I heard the Reapers were taking Earth—"

"I'm here. We're together again. That's all that matters."

It wasn't, but it was all that mattered right now. So he set aside what was happening outside and kissed her for the first time in months.

It was worth the wait.

They became each other's escape, silently clinging to each other so closely that, after they separated from the initial kiss, they wound up sitting beside each other against the wall. His talons drifted tenderly through her hair as her fingers gently traced his scars and discovered they had recently begun to fade. It was exactly what they both needed to be back in each other's arms again, simply enjoying each other's presence when solace was slowly becoming a thing of the past. This was where they belonged. Always.

"This reunion is going a lot smoother than the last one," Terra smirked before kissing his mandible.

Garrus smirked back, nuzzling against her. "I'm learning."

Terra smiled. He was. He knew her better than anyone and now he knew how to show her he loved her. Maybe—

_"Commander," EDI came over the PA, "Admiral Hackett has sent a message asking us to intercept a Cerberus incursion on Eden Prime."_

Of course. Their time was very limited now. Even while they were waiting for other people to mobilize and choose neutral meeting grounds and everything, they were being asked to redirect to this problem or that one. She was exhausted just thinking about how far they would be stretched before this was over. "Tell Joker to head in, I'm on my way."

Garrus sighed as she stood up.

"Don't worry, we'll sneak some time to ourselves later."

"I know. …it just feels like we're abandoning Palaven."

She couldn't deny that some part of her felt the same, but as long as they had Victus aboard and they were organizing the war summit, she refused to give up hope. "We're doing everything we can. The day I'm not fighting for Palaven won't be 'til the day I die."

He shrugged. "You kind of already did that."

"Case in point, then. If it'll make you feel better, you can save the calibrations for later and come up to the CIC with me."

"I don't know. I'm pretty sure someone screwed up something down here when they were scrubbing the Cerberus out. I'd like to get the old girl back in fighting shape."

"And miss Joker fawning over EDI's new body?"

"Yeah, well, I—wait, what?!"

Terra simply smirked.

"Oh, this I gotta see!"

"You really do."

Joker's reaction was worth witnessing. Terra couldn't help but think that it was reminiscent of those old Earth cartoons, just barely stifling the urge to start snickering and tell the flustered, giddy pilot to put his eyeballs back in his head. Somehow, though, he managed to keep his eyes on the road (so to speak) while EDI took up position as his new co-pilot and Garrus and Terra both internally laughed. Garrus wound up striking up a conversation with EDI about how her new body was working out while Terra went down to the armory to prepare for the mission.

"So," James spoke up while she was gathering her armor, not even breaking his stride on a series of pull-ups, "what's the deal with you and the turian?"

Terra rolled her eyes at first, thinking it was Kasumi all over again. This time, though, she figured she might as well just be open about it from the beginning and let the crew gossip all they wanted (better her personal life than their people's darkening fate, at least in this instance). "Who, Garrus? He happens to be my boyfriend."

James reacted so sharply that he nearly lost his grip on the bar. "He…_what_?!"

"Got a problem, lieutenant?" she smirked, purposely doing so as she drew her pistol.

"Uh…no, no problem at all. Just…not what I was expecting." He finally dropped from the bar, stretching out as he faced her. "So we going groundside again?"

_"Actually," EDI intercepted, "the mission briefing suggests Cerberus is attempting to uncover Prothean technology. I would recommend taking Dr. T'Soni."_

Terra nodded. "And Garrus goes with me by default. So maybe next time, Vega."

James shrugged it off, instead gathering her weapons for her while she suited up. When Garrus and Liara came down to hop in the shuttle and move out, James waved them off with a casual "Good luck down there, Lola."

Terra waved back idly. "Yeah, yeah, we'll come back in one p—" She stopped when she realized what he just said, turning to give him an incredulous look. "_Lola_?"

He shrugged. "Nicknames are kind of my thing. My best friend growing up had an older sister named Lola…hot, tough."

She just kept eying him. "…right." She finally turned to get on the shuttle, peripherally taking note of the territorially inquisitive glance Garrus tossed James' way before following her on.

Eden Prime wasn't quite occupied, but it might as well have been, Cerberus was there in such force. Terra was more furious with every turn. Eden Prime's colonists had been through enough three years ago without Cerberus taking away what they had left right as the Reapers were moving in. This planet was supposed to be beautiful, but all she could see was bloodshed and loss.

"They'll rebuild," Garrus tried to tell her, "If there's one thing I know about humans, it's how resilient they are."

For once, his perfectly legitimate statement did nothing to console her. "They rebuilt Mindoir. It wasn't the same."

Having seen how hard that loss had hit her, he elected not to respond.

The main contingent of Cerberus troopers was easy to remove, clearing the way to a console that could access the dig site. Liara quickly hacked in to raise what had been discovered. She froze the second she hit the button. "Goddess, that doesn't seem possible…"

"What is it?" Terra asked as she came over.

"It's not a Prothean artifact." Liara turned and watched the elevator raise and reveal a cryo-pod. "It's a _Prothean_. And it's still alive!"

This was definitely the last thing Terra had expected. When Liara confirmed they could wake the Prothean, she thought both of them were about to faint. Even Garrus seemed too stunned to act until she finally heard Cerberus regrouping. Since Liara had told her they needed to search the Cerberus terminals for Prothean data to deactivate the pod without killing its inhabitant, Terra quickly led the assault to drive Cerberus back. The biggest threat they encountered was a turret right in front of the building that was clearly their target, but Garrus was able to overload its shields so Liara could warp its armor, a combo attack that made it explode in its engineer's face and leave him open for a direct attack from Terra. Terra led the way into the miniature Cerberus lab and began poking through the terminal within. She didn't know how Cerberus had managed to recover what they did, but she did know that it was a recording of the Protheans' final stand on Eden Prime, of soldiers falling to Collectors as they attempted to withdraw behind a sealed fortress and go into cryo until the Reapers left. It was up to them to make sure that wasn't for nothing.

"I think I can use that to deactivate the pod," Terra said.

Garrus looked at her in astonishment. "You understood that?"

She looked at him in confusion. "You didn't?"

"No, I just saw static."

Liara quickly put the pieces together. "It must be the Cipher. It allowed you to process the visions from the beacons and comprehend Prothean language. It probably let you see this as well."

Strangely, Terra had forgotten she had the thought patterns of a dead race embedded in her psyche. She only really used it when she was revisiting the visions, which she didn't do voluntarily. Maybe now it would prove helpful again. They fought through the Cerberus defense a bit more hastily now, finding the next terminal and letting Terra view its information. She saw the same Protheans struggling to survive the Reapers' relentless onslaught, more importantly finding the other signal they needed to free the one in the pod. Now it was just a matter of doing that while Cerberus shot at them from every angle. Which they managed. As usual.

When the pod opened, Liara practically stared. Here was the validation of her life's work, the one thing she had never dreamed she would see.

Terra could merely think how this explained why the Collectors looked like bugs. Before Horizon, she would never have pictured the Protheans that way, yet here they were. And here was one of them, alive and kicking.

Kicking hard enough to knock all three of them over when he woke up. Apparently, he was biotic. That would've been nice to know beforehand. Terra, predictably, was back on her feet and chasing after him first. He seemed paralyzed by the sight of Eden Prime as it has changed since he went under, giving Terra a chance to catch him. The second she made contact, though, she again saw that day playing out, this one Prothean surviving where all his kind fell. He seemed to be reliving it at the same time, if the way he fell to his knees as the scene ended was anything to go by.

"How many others?" he asked.

Terra answered with a sympathetic look he didn't even see. "Just you."

He sighed miserably.

She had known she could understand his language, but she hadn't expected he would understand hers. "You can understand me?"

"Yes. Now that I have read your physiology, your nervous system."

She didn't like the idea of him "reading" her, but she shrugged it off. "So you were…doing that while I was seeing…"

"Our destruction," he nodded as he stood up and faced her. He then took notice of Garrus and Liara coming up behind her and scoffed, shaking his head. "Human. Asari. Turian. I am surrounded by primitives."

Terra wasn't sure whether to be amused or insulted. "It's not safe here anymore. You can come with us."

"You fight the Reapers?"

"To the death."

"Then I will follow."

She offered her hand.

He didn't take it. He just walked past her and waited to follow them to the shuttle. Admittedly, not a good start to their relationship.

It wasn't exactly going any better when they got back to the _Normandy_. By the time she had explained to Hackett what they had found, Liara was calling her down to the engineering deck. Garrus was waiting when she arrived, because obviously he didn't know what to expect any more than she did and wanted to look out for as always, and followed her into the room that used to be Grunt's. They found their asari at odds with a small group of Alliance soldiers surrounding the kneeling Prothean with weapons armed.

"I'm trying to make the room more comfortable for him," Liara explained, "but they won't even let me talk to him!"

"Sorry, commander," the soldier said, "First contact protocols. 'No deadly force unless fired upon, but assume hostility.' We had to dust off the manuals."

Terra could understand the caution, but she had seen this Prothean stand against the Reapers and then not harm her when he could. Trust would have to be earned. Yet he could not do so if he wasn't given the chance. "You can stand down. I don't think our new friend is going to be a problem." She stepped up, facing the Prothean himself. "Will he?"

He stood up, looking at her… "…that depends on you." Before anyone could react, he took hold of her.

Garrus was in position to tackle the ancient alien before any of the Alliance personnel could even raise their guns, but Liara signaled all of them to stand down. Garrus got the message and kept back, but he didn't calm down.

"A warrior's strength swells within you," the Prothean said, "a child of three worlds and proud to be so. Yet there is great turmoil, for all three have fallen. You fear the Reapers will win. You fear—"

"_Enough_!" Terra finally pushed him back, grabbing her arm where he had touched her. If she had wanted someone to read her mind with that much accuracy, she would've asked. "…how did you do that?"

"Experience is a biological marker. My people can read these. Though, as you saw on Eden Prime, the connection can work both ways."

Terra began to put the pieces together. "Like the beacons."

The word drew his attention. "Yes. Which…" Cautiously, he touched her arm again.

Both of their minds filled at once with the vision that had plagued her nightmares, become background noise to her true night terrors, and then returned with the dread that this would soon be the fate that befell her beloved galaxy. The vision of his people's destruction.

He stepped back, all four eyes widening in shock. "You found one. Two of them! You saw our warnings! Why were they not heeded?! Why didn't you prepare for the Reapers, human?!"

"It's 'commander'!" Terra immediately snapped back, "And no one could understand your warnings! The first beacon was damaged, it nearly killed me! I tried to warn everyone else, but it's hard to make them listen to you when they can't see the same message!"

He went from outraged to simply downtrodden as he realized what this meant. "Then communication is still primitive in this cycle."

Liara finally signaled the soldiers that she, Terra, and Garrus could take it from here, prompting them all to leave, and went over to the console near the back of the room. "We were hoping you could tell us more about the device. We found your plans."

"Device?" he asked with a curious look her way.

She pulled up the blueprint on the screen. "The one your people were building to destroy the Reapers. The plans were incomplete. We were hoping you could tell us why."

He looked at the plans for a moment, that downtrodden look crossing his eyes again. "…we never finished it. It was too late."

Terra hadn't been holding out any hope that the sole survivor would have all the answers, but she still felt a cloud of hope diminish deep inside her. "So you don't anything about this 'Catalyst' either."

He sighed. "No."

And now it dissipated entirely. Still, this was a huge development she couldn't let misfortune spoil. "Well, what can you do for us?"

"I was a soldier. I can aid you in the coming battle." He turned to look at them. "My people had avatars of many traits. There were those who stood for bravery, strength, cunning…"

"And you?"

"The embodiment of vengeance. The Reapers will pay for my people's blood."

Garrus nodded. "That I believe we can do."

Terra's curiosity guided them from there (at least until such time that Liara's enthusiasm resurfaced and took over), asking about Prothean society and how their war had failed. Her curiosity was satisfied, but they were all stunned to hear that Prothean society was nothing like they had believed, nothing like their own. The story reminded Terra of Rome. No, actually, the turians reminded her of Rome. The Protheans were an extreme even further beyond that. Liara seemed especially disturbed to hear it, and Terra couldn't blame her. This new addition was…unfamiliar territory for them all, to say the least.

"This has been…interesting," he finally said, "Seeing the primitives of my cycle now in power. Humans, asari, turians…"

"There's also the salarians," Liara offered.

"The lizard people?"

"I believe they're amphibian."

"…they used to eat flies."

Terra wasn't sure whether to be disgusted or amused to hear that.

The Prothean turned to her before she could bother deciding. "I will fight for you, commander. I am known as Javik."

She nodded. "Then welcome to the _Normandy_, Javik."

When Terra and Garrus followed Liara out to give their new friend some time to get settled, they both got the feeling the asari was a bit disillusioned by what they had learned. It was pretty clear to Garrus that Terra was, too, somewhere deep down. As the three of them got on the elevator, he watched her, thinking how the Prothean empire was the opposite of what she wanted for their galaxy. Definitely not about how Javik "reading" her was stepping over a line only he had a right to. Definitely not.

…maybe a little.

He finally decided they both needed to get their mind off things. Instead of stepping off with Liara on deck 3, he hung back and followed his human up to deck 1. She looked at him as if she knew what he had in mind and was wondering if she was truly in the mood for it. When the doors opened to let them into her cabin, he made up her mind for her by wrapping his arms around her and kissing her.

She took a moment to enjoy the embrace before leaning back to look at him. "There's probably a more efficient use of our time, you know."

"Not really. We need to take as much together as possible…while we still can."

She couldn't argue with that. It was one of the few things she could trust wholeheartedly to be true. With an appreciative smile, she drew him to sit down beside her on the bed. Though she hated to use him as an escape from the weight of the galaxy slowly burying itself on top of her.

No one else would've noticed the resulting hesitation behind her wanting gestures. But he did. "Terra…"

She immediately grew defensive. If she let him comfort her preemptively, she'd only break down faster. Especially with what Javik had said still heavy on her mind. "I'm not afraid."

"Yes, you are. In case you hadn't noticed, I am, too. We _all_ are. Just because we still have hope for victory doesn't mean we aren't all afraid of the alternative deep down, knowing what we're up against. You shouldn't have to justify your feelings."

"But I do. I'm in command, people are looking up to me. If I falter, they _fall_."

"You're not doing this alone. And you're not perfect, the whole crew knows that. We're all behind you." He smiled, taking her hands in his. "And I'm right beside you."

He was. He always was. He had been the constant in her life for 16 years, the one person she had always known without a doubt that she could depend on to the ends of the universe and back. And he had proven it time and again.

She smiled more truly as she realized something. She didn't want to eloquently, poetically frame her feelings for him this time. She wanted to say it openly in a way she rarely had the chance to. Turning her hands around his, she turned on his omni-tool.

He looked down at this in confusion. "What are you doing?"

She ignored the question, shushing him by softly laying her head on his without taking her eyes off of her work. Tech genius she might not be, but she had picked up a few tricks along the way.

Like turning off a translator.

His confusion faded to shock as he saw what was happening. It had never occurred to him that even his relationship with her was reliant on a translator just so they could speak. They had picked up some of each other's language along the way just from being so close, but they had never tried to communicate without something to lean on. Now she had deactivated his means of understanding her and was in the process of deactivating her means of understanding him. He hadn't been nervous around her in over a decade and now…

She wasn't nervous, though. She was determined. She let her sapphire gaze lock onto his, reaching up to lay her hand on his scars. Then she spoke.

The turian language was created by a race with dual-toned voices. The trills and hums involved were extensive and nearly impossible to replicate by an alien. But on Terra's musical, poetic tongue, Garrus felt like he had never heard the words more beautifully articulated. With her limited range, she still perfectly reproduced a phrase only she could string together like a chain of jewels and give to him with an honest and loving gleam in her bright blue eyes.

"I love you eternally to the depths of my soul."

Seeing what she had in mind and ringing with delight at her promise, he reciprocated, whispering in her ear in the language of her people. It felt clumsy to him, but she felt her heart quiver joyfully to hear those earnest words practically sung by the voice she loved, unfiltered and adoring.

"I love you with the fire of the stars."

Having said all they would ever need to, they simply stayed there in each other's arms as the night began to creep in. It was only when EDI asked if they should start heading for the Annos Basin that Terra remembered it was nearly lights out and reactivated the translators to tell Garrus to head back down.

"We'll be needed in the morning," she told him, "Get some rest." She smiled, kissing his scars. "I'm all yours when we're done."

He smiled back until he was on the elevator back down to deck 3. Up until he finally fell asleep in his bunk, her voice trilling in his ear was still bright in his mind, a proclamation he knew he'd never forget. Just as he knew he would never forget the promise she left him with.

She was all his. That would be worth fighting a war over.


	63. Compromise

Chapter 63: Compromise

We see only differences  
When we do not want to see truth  
But even the sea must meet the shore in the end

By the time the summit commenced, Terra already knew it was going badly. All the envoy ships were carefully out of each other's range, not able to settle on a neutral meeting ground. It was only when Terra reached out and pressured them that they decided the _Normandy_ would have to do.

Because having three angry diplomats in the same room with her on a warship was such a good idea.

True to her expectations, they were already yelling when she made her way into the meeting room. She was a little surprised that the salarian dalatrass proved to be the most hotheaded of the group, looking down at Wrex as if he was hardly worthy of even breathing the same air as her. Terra already didn't like her, if only on principle because Wrex was her friend. When she walked in, Wrex simply nodded to her, a more terse greeting than she had expected but the most he could afford under present conditions. She couldn't blame him for already being worked up since he said Reapers were already being sighted around Tuchanka. The logical part of her figured it made sense that the Brutes were most likely made of krogan while the rest of her was outraged and disgusted at the prospect. Tuchanka had been through enough. Palaven was already teetering dangerously on the edge of following suit. She was doing whatever it took to end this.

While Wrex clearly agreed, he knew that this would be his only chance, that he was now and only now the decider in the negotiations. So he played his hand: "I'll tell you what I need. …a cure for the genophage."

Naturally, the salarian dalatrass reacted badly. "Absolutely not! The genophage is non-negotiable!"

But Terra thought otherwise. "No, it's really not! Your people only made it as a deterrent, and there's a reason it wasn't supposed to be deployed! The krogan know they made a mistake, they've been suffering for it long enough!"

"1,476 years," Wrex snarled, "if you're keeping count."

"It was 1000 years of peace!" the dalatrass snapped, "Free of these brutes!"

Using that word in light of what had just happened was a step too far where Terra was concerned. She was more than prepared to show the dalatrass what she thought of her, too.

Until Primarch Victus stepped in. "_Enough_! Whether or not the krogan deserve a cure is academic. It would take years to formulate one!"

"My information says otherwise," Wrex countered. He then used the monitor to display the evidence—some of the krogan females Maelon had experimented on had survived…and were being held on Sur'Kesh.

"Dalatrass!" Victus turned to the salarian, appalled, "Is this true?!

The dalatrass saw that she couldn't deny it, sputtering for an excuse. "How would curing the genophage benefit my people?!"

"You think the Reapers won't come for your people eventually?" Terra asserted, "The krogan would help you if you helped them. But if you don't, they won't be helping any of us…"

"…and I'll be the last friendly turian you ever see," Victus completed for her, staring down the dalatrass insistently.

The dalatrass was outnumbered three to one. She finally relented. "The females are being held at one of our STG bases. I'll send the coordinates."

"We're going," Terra nodded to Wrex.

"What?! You can't just barge in! This will take time—"

"It happens now," Victus said, "As a Council Spectre, Shepard can oversee the exchange."

Terra gave Victus a grateful smirk before leading Wrex out and to the cargo bay. On the way there, she called to Joker to take them down to Sur'Kesh, which was only about ten minutes away, and to Garrus and EDI to prepare to move in. Time to see what EDI's new body could do.

"I still don't trust a word they say," Wrex was sneering as they geared up, already stowing a shotgun while the squad was seeing EDI off.

"Let diplomacy play out, Wrex," Terra shrugged as she finished holstering her weapons, "You'll get what you want."

"Don't worry, Wrex," Liara nodded, "we're all behind you to see your people home safely."

"Thanks, Liara," Wrex nodded back, "Wouldn't want anyone else along for the ride."

"AHEM!" Garrus immediately spoke up from where he was readying his rifles.

"Ah, I suppose I can make room for you, too, Garrus."

Garrus shook his head. "You sure you haven't gone soft sitting on that throne, forgot how to hold a gun?"

"He wouldn't be king then," Javik remarked, leaning against the back wall.

Wrex eyed him curiously. "Who's that?"

Terra blinked. "Uh…he's a Prothean."

Wrex shook his head again, walking past her to the shuttle. "Sometimes I'm not sure whether the _Normandy_'s a warship or a traveling freak show…"

Honestly, Terra couldn't fault that opinion.

Locating the base didn't prove to be a problem. What did prove to be a problem was getting clearance to land the shuttle there.

Naturally, Wrex couldn't accept one minute's delay. "I knew they wouldn't keep their word! Let's see them try to stop a krogan airdrop!"

"Wait, what?" Terra reacted, "What does that me—?" Then the shuttle rumbled as the door opened and she realized what exactly he did mean. "_Wrex_—!"

Too late. The krogan chief leaped out of the shuttle and landed with so much force that he probably triggered an earthquake on the other side of the continent. When the salarians attempted to move in to restrain him, he tossed them back with a biotic field and drew his shotgun. Terra was finally able to jump in and calm everyone down, Garrus and EDI right behind her, when the salarian in charge ran in and informed them they had just received word of the mission. They had clearance now, but they also now had to leave Wrex under guard. Wrex responded in an appropriately krogan manner.

Terra quickly intercepted him. "We can handle it from here, Wrex."

If anyone other than Terra had made the request, he would've fought back. As it was, he holstered his shotgun and warned them all "If anything goes wrong, all bets are off." Perfectly reasonable. If a bit intimidating.

They made their way through the facility, only pausing to speak to Major Kirrahe (who they were definitely pleasantly surprised to see) and to admire the view (which EDI had a new appreciation for now that she was seeing it "in person"). Terra had never been to Sur'Kesh before and was tempted to capture that view while she could, but they were on a mission. And the fact that the base started mobilizing in response to an alarm just as the squad was getting on the elevator didn't bode well.

What did bode well was who they met when they went down. "Shepard! Excellent timing! Good to have you here."

"Mordin!" Terra had never been so happy to see a salarian in her life. A handshake certainly didn't seem like the best way to convey that, but they had a lot going on right now. "You're back with STG?"

"Of course. Recovered females. Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong." He quickly checked that no one was listening and turned to whisper something to her. "Sent word to Clan Urdnot. Encouraged political pressure to free females."

Terra smiled. "You're Wrex's inside source."

"Yes. Can discuss later. Alarms not normal." He led her off to the side. "Females' immune systems compromised, side effect of Maelon's cure." He gestured to a lab sadly. "These…didn't survive."

Terra's heart broke at the sight of so many krogan bodies. More casualties of Maelon's malpractice. "I thought we saved the data."

"We did. Useful for reconstructing cure from living tissue. …couldn't save them."

She sighed sadly. "I know you did everything you could, Mordin."

He nodded. "Too late for them. Need to hurry. One female still alive."

Terra moved faster when she heard that. Her hope was hanging on a thread right now. She couldn't let it be cut.

The female was restrained in a pod, probably as a sterilization measure to prevent her weakened immunities from killing her as it had killed the others. She eyed Terra with suspicion from the second they approached. "Are you here to kill me?"

Terra might've been appalled at the insinuation if she couldn't guess what this krogan had likely been through. "No. You're the future of the krogan race. I'm fighting for that."

As if on cue, the building shook, prompting the female to give her a wary glance. "Then I hope you brought an army."

Wrex quickly called down to warn them. Cerberus was there. They were assaulting the base. He would have to meet them on the roof to extract the female if they wanted this to work. Mordin quickly initiated the release procedure and took up position in the pod to monitor her vitals.

"You'll see Tuchanka again," Terra assured the female before leading Garrus and EDI off into the thick of it, "I promise."

Garrus couldn't help but admire her determination. She _always_ kept her promises.

Cerberus was definitely after the female. Terra couldn't fathom what they would have to gain from preventing the alliance that might be their sole hope of defeating the Reapers. All she knew was that they had to be stopped. Cerberus knew how to play defensive, but not defensive enough. EDI proved herself invaluable in no time, not just for overloading shields and incinerating turrets, but for taking fire organics couldn't through a defense matrix and then sending out a decoy to draw fire so the squad could flank their opponents. Between EDI's tricks, Garrus' precision strikes, and Terra's firepower, it was all too easy to fight their way to the top.

Until Cerberus dropped in the heavy mech. Which wouldn't have been a terrible problem had it not been dropped right on top of them. They had to fall back at top speed, thankful the mech could only move one step every five seconds, and take cover long enough to wear down its shields. Once the shields were down, though, Terra couldn't help but notice the light armor around the controls. Poor design choice. All she had to do was tell Garrus to hit it with a few sniper shots and it cracked right open. Allowing her to toss a grenade inside.

It exploded. She enjoyed it.

She also enjoyed the following scene, from Wrex pushing aside Mordin to play the valiant hero with the female to the female then snatching Wrex's shotgun to shoot down the last two Cerberus troopers herself with a scoff of "I can handle myself, Wrex." Not to mention Wrex's resulting eye roll and sigh of "Women…"

Mordin took up position in the med bay on the _Normandy_ almost immediately, saying he only needed a little time and a male blood sample (which Wrex was hesitant but ultimately happy to provide) to synthesize the cure from "Eve's" tissue. Terra couldn't help but smirk at the name. Of course, while that issue was being resolved, three more popped up. Specialist Traynor had reason to believe Grissom Academy needed help, Primarch Victus had lost contact with a platoon that had crashed on Tuchanka, and Wrex had lost contact with a scout team that had been investigating the rachni relay. None of it sat well with Terra, but she prioritized. The cure would take them to Tuchanka anyway, so the turians could, against her better judgment, wait for last. She could take care of these krogan scouts first. So she plotted the course for Utukku and called Javik to take his turn at showing them what he could do.

Wrex sent ahead his top commandos—Aralakh Company. They landed to see the krogan troops in position at a camp. "Yeah," the leader was saying into a COMM, "shuttle just arrived."

Terra knew that voice. She couldn't help but beam at the sound of it. "_Grunt_?!"

"Shepard?!" The tank-bred in question quickly pushed his way to the front of the camp to see her. When he had confirmation it was his former "battle-master," he raced over to give her a greeting that redefined the term "bear hug." "SHEPARD!"

Terra laughed as she hugged him back. "Good to see you again, Grunt."

"You're telling me," he smirked as he stepped back to face her, "Didn't those idiots lock you up?"

"Kind of. They had to keep the batarians off me while they were preparing for war with the Reapers. What about you? You're in charge here?"

Grunt smiled and nodded. "Yeah. I earned a few scars earning my place, but these krogan respect me." He looked behind them to the last camp. "Looks like a sinkhole swallowed the scouts. Hard to believe this might be rachni." The words were disbelieving or tense but the look on his face was definitely hopeful and excited. "A chance to face the old enemy? Impossible to resist. Sensors show a lot of movement below. If we're lucky, it's a nest."

Before Terra could come up with a witty retort, Javik stepped up. "Ah. It's you. The krogan who occupied my quarters on the _Normandy_. …you left your mark."

"What?! Shepard, who is this?"

"You shouldn't be so eager to face the rachni. They were formidable opponents, even in my cycle."

Grunt simply looked at Terra demandingly.

Terra groaned, shaking her head and waving him off. "Ask me later."

"Yeah, whatever. We should get moving."

Garrus smirked as he readied his rifle. "Just like old times, Grunt?"

Grunt answered with his signature laugh.

Terra smiled. She wouldn't deny she had missed that sound.

Naturally, though, it wasn't as simple as they planned. The second Terra, Garrus, and Javik took point, cutting through one of the old camp's buildings, the whole thing tumbled down into the sinkhole. They managed to make it out without a scratch and regroup at the entrance to what they were assuming was a nest, but Grunt and his krogan were still at the top and would have to go around to find another route.

Terra had been skeptical that this was really rachni. She had been the one to cut the deal with the last queen, after all. The queen had kept her promise and disappeared. There was no reason for her to go back on it now. But when Terra saw what had really happened, her skepticism turned again to outrage. The Reapers had found the queen and her children. They'd harvested them. She was so furious that the Reapers would leave nothing untouched that she felt like she could've kept up with Grunt had he been right next to her. As it was, she had Garrus as a more-or-less-calming presence and Javik as biotic support that actually really came in handy. In no time, they'd worn down the nest and caught up with the krogan. If they could just make it to the central chamber, they could clear the whole place, but the path through was a small crawlspace that Garrus and Javik could squeeze through but the krogan definitely couldn't. So instead, Grunt stepped up to hold position and give them an escape route.

"Good luck," Terra told him earnestly.

Grunt scoffed. "I don't need luck. I have ammo."

She smiled. It was a good life motto, that was for sure.

Their path through the central chamber was barred almost immediately, but it was easy enough to fight their way through. What really halted them was what they found inside.

"Silence…" the bodies of krogan surrounding them began to speak.

"What the—?!" Garrus immediately jumped.

But Terra calmly took the front. She knew what this was. She could see the one behind it.

The rachni queen had grown. She was still in the form of a rachni, but she was ten times the size she had been on Noveria, watching them with icy eyes from behind the confines of a Reaper device. "The sour note of the machines has ceased," she spoke through the fallen.

"It is you," Terra stepped up, "What happened?"

"We kept our promise. But the machines came. They took our children and sent them to war."

"But you weren't affected?"

"The sour note of the machines was everywhere. But they cannot control us. We will fight for our children. Remove this last shackle and we are free."

_"Shepard!" Grunt came over the COMM before she could make a move, "We're getting swarmed! We stay here and Aralakh Company dies!"_

Terra quickly turned back to the queen. "Can you call them off?"

"No," the queen lamented, "They cannot hear us. We must go now. Release us!"

"Commander," Javik stepped up, "she is injured. She needs too much time to escape."

Terra could see that. She could hear the krogan struggling over the COMM. But she had stood with the rachni once already and she wouldn't let them die. Grunt was out there protecting his men. She had to trust him. "Grunt, listen to me. Aralakh Company needs to hold position while the queen escapes."

Grunt didn't take it well. Quite frankly, Garrus wasn't sure how to feel. "Uh, Terra…"

"We're not arguing about this!" she asserted, readying her pistol and taking aim on the Reaper device, "She's coming with us!" So she fired and the queen was free. "Grunt, get us out of here!"

As if he'd been waiting outside, Grunt blasted through the wall in a matter of seconds and began to lead them in a mad dash for the exit. He kept fighting all the way there, shooting down rachni—not rachni, _Ravagers_—at every turn without even slowing down. It was only when they prepared to turn a corner and saw a whole host of Ravagers across the way that they stopped. Yet still Grunt stepped up. "The shuttle's down that path. I'll hold them off."

This was where Terra drew the line. She wasn't leaving Grunt behind, wasn't letting the krogan who'd practically been born on her ship as part of the crew that she considered family…she refused to let him die in this cave. She stood ready to say as much.

He didn't let her. "_Get out of here, Shepard_."

She could see in his eyes what he meant. She had stood for him when no one else would. It was time for him to repay the favor, no matter how much she disliked it. Sadly, she laid her hand on his shoulder, silently letting him know that she was grateful, proud, and dismayed all at once. Then, before she could hesitate again, she led Garrus and Javik away.

They were on their way onto the shuttle in five minutes. She felt hollow as she managed to tell Cortez they were the last ones out. She wasn't ready to lose a friend like this. While Javik simply got on the shuttle, Garrus stayed by her side, ready to be there for her where Grunt wasn't. Against her better judgment, she finally looked back…and saw a certain bloodied warrior rising from the cave. "GRUNT!" Before she knew she was moving, she ran back over to him.

He stumbled closer. "Anybody…got something to eat?"

Terra almost laughed, almost cried, barely managed to catch him when he finally lost his footing. While Garrus came back over to help her drag Grunt onto the shuttle, she smiled to know that he was OK.

You couldn't keep a good krogan down. Tank-bred or no.

They managed to get Grunt to the med bay without anyone collapsing under his weight, Joker promptly setting a course for the Citadel to see him to a proper hospital. Terra then only needed to take the time to let Admiral Hackett know that they were sending the surviving rachni his way. He was certainly surprised. Whether it was a pleasant surprise or not remained to be seen, but she was content in the knowledge that it was the right choice, even if it did cost them.

Wrex caught her on the way out. "Siding with the giant spider again, huh?" He smirked. "Good to see you still know how to fight and Grunt got out with just a few scratches."

Terra rolled her eyes. "Right. Don't worry, Wrex, this is the just the start. We'll take care of everything. Let's get back to work."

Wrex sighed. "…yeah."

Terra eyed him curiously. "What's the matter?"

"Mordin. He got his tissue sample." He hesitated, turning back to the terminal with a groan. "Let's just say scalpels were never meant to cut where he cut."


	64. Heart's Ease

Chapter 64: Heart's Ease

The brightest lights can be hidden  
Or sparked in places we do not expect

They had to divert to the Citadel to drop Grunt off at the hospital. While they were there, Terra checked in on Ashley, who was doing better and under consideration for elevation to Spectre status (pleasant surprise there), and Thane, who was doing worse but still happy to see her and wishing her all the best. She even borrowed an hour from her "shore leave" to help Kasumi and a salarian Spectre hunt down an indoctrinated hanar and save Kahje, convincing the thief to help out with the Crucible. She also took the time to help out a few issues some people were having with the war effort and with C-Sec's coordination and with the refugees already flooding a cordoned off docking bay.

That was where she wound up in the end, of course. Sadly looking over all those who had already lost their homes or even their families, wondering how many more would end up here before it was over, wishing she could do something to help them go on besides promise to win this for them and avenge their losses. And that was before she came to the end of the bay and saw that an entire section had been appropriated to the turians.

Garrus was there. Of course he was. He was still playing the expert advisor, organizing the efforts of those in charge to best help the ones who couldn't fight anymore. He was already growing weary when he saw Terra arrive. The sight of her was both an ease to his heartache and a source of concern at the same time. He wanted to say so much, but since they were hardly in private, he settled for a simple greeting. "Terra."

She didn't seem to notice or care, her attention locked entirely on her surroundings. "What's going on here?"

"We convinced the Council to accept our wounded. …nowhere else to go."

It hurt her to see the proud and mighty soldiers she had so long aspired to live up to brought so low. Nothing in war was fair and all turians knew that. But this… "How bad is it?"

He hesitated to say, but he knew better than to try sheltering her. "More dead than injured. 85% killed in action. A single Reaper can entirely wipe out eight or even ten whole platoons. In one attack."

She shook her head in disgust. "That isn't war. This is slaughter."

He nodded. "They're called Reapers for a reason."

She looked at him sadly. "Just do what you can for them."

"We'll do our best. A few might even get back on their feet, but the rest…" He sighed sadly. "Sympathy is about all we can offer." Speaking of which, though, his focus again fell to her. "Are you holding up OK?"

She scoffed. "How can I?" She still offered him a reassuring look, though. "I'm trying."

"Well, by all means, keep trying, but don't burn yourself out. These people need you." While no one was looking, he reached over, taking her hand again and letting her see the truth in his sapphire gaze before he even said it: "_I_ need you."

She believed it. She silently told him so, promising she would never let him down, before turning to go, just slowly enough that his talons lingered on her hand as long as they could.

That subtle exchange was still dwelling on her mind when they finally mobilized to head for Grissom Academy. Garrus was straight back to the battery, but he passed her in the CIC on the way there and gave her a supportive smile that said more than words ever could.

"I'm here for you whenever you need me," it said, "Whatever it is, come to me."

She already knew it. It was still nice to know.

Traynor's suspicions were correct. By the time they arrived at the Academy, Cerberus had practically taken the station. They were still able to make contact with Kahlee Sanders, the director of the facility, and make a plan—Terra, Garrus, and Liara would come in by shuttle and extract the students.

"Joker," Terra asked, "can you give me a diversion?"

Joker beamed like she had asked him to eat a whole cake. "Boy, can I!"

She smirked before heading down to the shuttle. As they moved in, she saw the _Normandy_ fly past every Cerberus ship around the station and then swing around in a series of maneuvers and jumps that no one but Joker could possibly keep up with. It was amusing to see the best pilot in the galaxy in mischievous, gleeful action. It certainly kept her hopes up when they got inside the station and headed in to meet Sanders at the security room. Three Cerberus soldiers at the door. All down in three seconds.

"Sanders, you're clear," Terra announced, the door opening for them immediately.

Sanders smiled. "Commander Shepard. Anderson always said you were one of the best."

Terra smiled to hear that. Apparently, Anderson and Sanders went way back and he tended to brag about his former XO. It was strangely gratifying. Still, they were on a mission. "How many students do you have?"

"A couple dozen," Sanders answered, "Most of them went home after we heard about Earth, but some of them wanted to stay. Either they didn't have anywhere to evacuate to or they wanted to help. Some of them are technical experts, prototyping tech for the Alliance. Others are biotics…training for artillery strikes."

"A few sessions knocking over practice dummies isn't going to prepare them for war."

"What were we supposed to do, turn them away?" She seemed to realize this wasn't something to argue about and turned back to the systems. Just in time to hear one of the security officers inform them that Cerberus was closing in on Orion Hall.

Terra headed straight there. Ordinarily, she wouldn't stop for anything if she knew the enemy was closing in on their objective and civilians—children, at that—were in danger, but that was true of the entire station and she wouldn't forgive herself if they missed something. So she searched every hall they could access, finding a few students who'd been scattered during the assault and killing any Cerberus in the way to help them fall back to Sanders. With that assurance in hand, it was simple enough to clear the way to find the hall in question.

And find someone all too familiar protecting the students from Cerberus' onslaught. "Eat this!" she shouted, throwing them back with a biotic force few could manage.

As if Terra needed more proof who it was. "_Jack_?!"

The biotic in question turned to look at her in amazement. "_Shepard_?!"

Jack was forced to fall back to guard the students she was looking after, leaving Terra, Garrus, and Liara to actually clear the room of Cerberus. It was difficult, but no worse than Sur'Kesh. Five minutes later, it was over and Jack was leaving the students to recuperate so she could jump down to greet Terra…by punching her in the face. "How many times did I tell you not to trust Cerberus?!"

Terra resorted to glaring as she grabbed her nose. "I _didn't_! …and _spirits_, you hit hard!"

Jack scoffed. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I break your pretty face? I'm sure Cerberus could patch it back up if they're not busy killing everyone!"

"Charming as ever…" Garrus sneered as he took Terra's side and "discreetly" made sure she wasn't actually injured.

"Bite me, Garrus! Better yet, bite _her_. Probably how she likes it."

While Terra and Garrus were both fighting the urge to start snapping at her, Liara stepped in. "I believe we have a crisis to worry about."

"Really?" Jack scoffed, shaking her head and folding her arms, "What gave it away?"

"Your real name is Jennifer. I can give you a last name to go with it if you play nice."

That silenced the conversation. Terra started staring at Liara in shock that she distantly noted Jack and Garrus were clearly sharing in. How deep had Liara had to dig into the Shadow Broker files on Cerberus to figure out who Jack really was? They were definitely going to be hearing about this again. At least when the war wasn't the first thing on all their minds.

Jack sighed. "OK. Fine. Whatever. All I care about is getting my kids out of here."

That got as much of a shocked reaction out of Garrus as Liara's comment. "_Your_ kids?"

Jack smiled wryly. "Yeah. I guess so."

Terra couldn't help but smile back. "I guess you finally found where you belong, huh?"

"Don't get too sappy about it. Alliance brass knew I'd helped you. They offered me this." She smirked as she raised her voice so the students could hear: "And apparently, the students responded well to my teaching style!"

"The psychotic biotic!" one of the students concurred.

"'I will destroy you!'" another remarked spiritedly.

"Drink your juice, Rodriguez!" Jack retorted, "You couldn't destroy wet tissue paper!"

Terra withheld her responding laughter. Jack had found her true self beneath all the anger and hatred and spite. It was nice to see her how she should've been and would've been without Cerberus' intervention. It was a far cry from the murderous crook they had taken from Purgatory, a change she was happy to see.

Unfortunately, now wasn't the best time to appreciate that. The students were still in danger. Cortez called to let them know that the time Joker had bought them was wearing down and the shuttle wouldn't be able to take them back to the ship. They had to change the plan, counting on Sanders to find them a path to a Cerberus shuttle that could carry them all out. Terra took point with Garrus and Liara, telling Jack and her students to stay on the upper levels and give them covering fire _carefully_. It worked well, biotic support from the students as well as from Liara exposing Cerberus to open fire at every turn where Garrus and Terra couldn't snipe them down. With Jack supervising the barriers, they made it through the atrium with only one injury to a student that recovered remarkably quickly. The students kept to the upper walkways, staying low on the way to the exit hall, while Terra led Garrus and Liara through the main halls, clearing out Cerberus whenever they saw them.

After taking care of two Cerberus troops in particular, they hit a snag. Two of the students were hiding behind a barrier, watching them suspiciously.

"We're not with Cerberus," Terra assured them, stepping over the bodies of the Cerberus troopers as if that wasn't proof enough, "We're here to help."

"I didn't buy it from the last guy," sneered the girl holding up the barrier, "and I've got no reason to buy it now."

Before Terra could come up with a means of persuading them, though, a third presence made itself known behind the barrier. "The square root of 906.01 is…"

A presence Terra would recognize anywhere. "…30.1."

David Archer looked up at her with a tentative smile. "Hello, commander."

The boy under the barrier looked at him. "David, you know her?"

"Yes. She rescued me from Cerberus. She made it quiet."

Having the proof she needed, the girl lowered the barrier.

"You did a good job protecting yourselves," Terra told them, "The biotic students are on the upper walkways. They can keep you safe on the way to the exits, out of the line of fire."

"Right. OK. Thanks." So the girl and the boy ran off.

Once they were gone, David stood up and turned to greet her properly.

"He looks better," Garrus observed, pleased to see it.

"I know you. _Normandy_ crew. …sorry."

Garrus shook his head reassuringly. "It was never your fault."

Terra agreed wholeheartedly. "Are you doing OK, David?"

"Yes," he nodded, "I've been counting."

"Anything in particular?"

"The number of days you lengthened my life."

Terra smiled softly. "Good to hear."

David gestured behind him to a door. "The security room. I hacked the lock. My friend is hiding in there."

"I've got them. Get up to the others, stay safe."

"Yes. Goodbye." With that simple farewell, he made his way off after the others.

Once he had left, Terra followed his directions. Garrus went in to check on the lock, giving her a chance to listen in. She could just barely hear breathing on the other side with the cybernetics on her hearing, just barely tell that the breathing was clearly frightened. She signaled Garrus to wait before opening the door, instead knocking. The breathing silenced itself immediately. "Hello?" No answer. "We're not Cerberus, we're with the Alliance. We're here to help."

…still nothing.

Realizing she wasn't getting anywhere, Terra nodded to Garrus to open the door and then carefully stepped inside. Liara and Garrus seemed to pick up on her cautious intentions and stayed back while she moved in. The room appeared clear, but there was a corner that wasn't visible from the door thanks to a weapons bench. Some part of her got ready to go on the defensive in case this student had a weapon in hand and was ready to attack, but she mainly focused on her slow approach. "You can come out. We're not going to hurt you."

Whoever it was couldn't hold their breath any longer. They managed to stay quiet somehow, but Terra could hear the shaking and withheld tears. Not just frightened, then. Terrified.

She knelt down at the end of the bench, crawling the last few steps to the corner. "You're safe now. I promise." Still not responding. Cagier than any of the others. Caution wouldn't do any good. Forgetting that going straight in was probably even riskier and focusing on how they needed to keep moving as soon as possible for the sake of the other students, she finally peered around the bench to the corner.

The second she leaned into the student's range of view, they darted for the opposite corner. "_No_!" It was a girl. She moved so suddenly and fiercely that she managed to push Terra aside long enough to cross the room. "Can't see me, can't hear me—_I'm not going back_!"

Liara moved first, hurrying over to head her off. "Easy! We're trying to help!"

She backed herself into another corner just trying to get out of reach. "Stay back! Don't touch me!"

Seeing Garrus was staying back and Liara wasn't making any progress, Terra stood up to get involved again. On her way, she looked the girl over, just in case she could find something to help talk her down. What she found only confused her. This girl was clearly in her mid- to late-20s, so she couldn't be a student, but she was clearly being treated as one. She was curling up so much that it was hard to tell what her face looked like behind her wavy brown hair, but it was what she'd said that stuck with Terra. Back? Back where? Was she a Cerberus test subject like Jack had been?

Terra wasn't sure what to say beyond the simple and honest truth. "It's OK, we're going to get you out of here. David Archer led us in here, he told us…you…" She stopped when she noticed something.

The girl was curled up enough that her face was hidden, but Terra could see how her hands were moving. Fingers curled and twisting back and forth, as if around imaginary strings. Terra couldn't personally play any instruments, but she had grown up watching them enough to know what it looked like. There were even a few songs she had seen played so many times that she could recognize the movements involved enough to attempt replicating them herself or see them in motions made without the actual instrument. In this instance, she could see a violin. Playing a song she knew quite well indeed.

Liara instantly took notice of Terra's sudden silence, something that was definitely not like her. "Shepard?"

The girl's movements staggered and halted when she heard that. "'Shepard'?" She turned to look at them for the first time, confused.

That was all the proof Terra needed. Her own breathing was stilted as she fell to her knees with the certainty of what she had never dared to believe could be possible. "…Violet?"

She responded. Like it was her name. All her attention turned to the commander, looking past the armor to the features she knew. 16 years and she still knew… "…Terra?"

Terra had to struggle not to start crying from shock and joy. She tentatively drew closer, watching as Violet released her tense posture to expose her violet blue eyes shining with a hope they clearly hadn't carried for 16 years. "This is…how…?"

Violet was struggling with all the same emotional responses, not sure how to process any of them. "You…I thought you were dead."

"And I thought I was never gonna see you again." Terra stopped struggling, taking this chance to hug her sister. Violet hesitated to respond but finally hugged her back. It was enough to make her completely forget about Cerberus and the Reapers and everything else that was wrong with her life. This one thing had finally been made right.

While Liara was stepping back, frozen in shock as she watched the scene unfold, Garrus looked on in astonishment, his detective side piecing together what must have happened—the Alliance, after preventing war with the batarians, must have started organizing more black ops to extract human slaves before the Reapers could arrive and make it impossible. Since Violet was a math genius like David Archer, she must have been sent to the Academy as a technical consultant for her recovery instead of a psych ward like the one that had harbored that Talitha girl they met three years ago. He was amazed they hadn't seen she was a Shepard and called Terra immediately, considering the sisters looked almost exactly alike. Violet's eyes weren't the same sapphire blue and her facial structure wasn't quite the same and her hair was a lot shorter (whether because the slavers had been cutting it or because it had had to be cut to surgically remove the slavers' implants), but there was no mistaking a Shepard when you saw one.

At first, he figured it wasn't his place to intrude on the reunion. But when the two stood up, he couldn't help but draw closer.

The second Violet saw him, she started backing up again.

Terra quickly moved to calm her. "It's OK. It's OK, they're my friends."

Violet turned to give her sister a confused look. Her eyes fell on Terra's necklace, which had at some point in the scuffles fallen out from being tucked under her armor. Then her eyes drifted back over to Garrus and saw how the symbol matched his markings. She had a lot more questions now, but she knew and trusted her sister, so she calmed down.

He approached carefully, not sure what exactly he should do or say. "…hi. My name is Garrus."

She just looked at him, clearly not sure how to proceed either.

Terra was ready to mediate until her COMM sparked with Jack's voice. _"Shepard! What's going on down there? We've gotta get moving!"_

Right. They had to move. Terra started to turn to Violet to tell her to head up to Jack's position like David had. But the words dissipated when she actually looked at her sister again. _Her sister_… Suddenly, she could understand why Garrus had been clinging to her so tightly after her resurrection. When you unexpectedly have someone you thought you'd lost forever returned to you, it seems as if they'll disappear again the second they're out of sight. Terra wasn't letting that happen. "We have to get to the shuttle bay. Stay close to us."

Violet nodded, practically hanging onto her as they hurried out of the room and down the halls toward the exit.

Turns out, it's a lot harder to maneuver in a firefight when you're trying to keep a recently rescued slave both close at hand and out of danger. Terra finally told Liara to hold the perimeter while she and Garrus bunkered down behind a couch with Violet tucked behind them, once again curled up and fidgeting with her hands as if drowning out the sounds of gunfire with an imaginary violin. It would have made the entire confrontation a lot more difficult if they weren't both snipers. When the final wave of Cerberus troopers attempted to intercept the final group of evacuating students, Terra had to lean out of cover to take them down completely, not even noticing when a centurion snuck around to flank them.

But Garrus noticed. And he dealt with it harshly, overloading the enemy's shield and then letting off a few more rounds than was strictly necessary to actually dispatch him. It occurred to him that he shouldn't have reacted that strongly, but it also occurred to him why. For one thing, Terra had just gotten her sister back and wouldn't be able to handle anything happening to her again. For another, he had a new understanding of what it was to be mated that hadn't been made clear before—family crossed the boundary with them, meaning Violet was his sister as much as Solana was Terra's and he wasn't letting her get hurt when he was there to stop it.

When the last trooper fell to Liara's assault, Jack gave the signal they were clear and everyone ran at full speed for the shuttle. They were about to board and escape when Jack noticed Rodriguez had fallen behind and come under fire by the last Cerberus troops left standing. Terra was still holding onto Violet or she would've doubled back, but Garrus again stepped up, racing in after Jack threw the Cerberus troops off their feet and giving Rodriguez the support to keep moving. Once everyone was at the evac point, Garrus still looking back and at the ready to lay down covering fire, they got moving.

Sanders was, of course, quick to thank them for their assistance. "We would never have gotten out of there without you, commander."

Violet eyed Terra curiously at the title but stayed quiet.

"I was going to suggest the students stick to a support role, but maybe they're ready for the front lines after all."

Terra didn't even need to see the hesitance in Jack's eyes to know how to respond to that. "They're ready, alright, but the Alliance needs them to hang back."

"What?!" one of the students immediately demanded, "But we trained for artillery strikes!"

"We don't need more artillery. We need stronger barriers for our front line squads."

Jack gave her an appreciative nod before stepping in to support the decision—"If that's where they need us, that's where we go."

Terra simply sat down next to Violet, spending the entire trip back to the _Normandy_ convincing herself that this was real.

She had her sister back.

"Joker," Terra called once they were back aboard, "take us to the Citadel. We've got some students to drop off."

While Joker was confirming the course and the students were finding a place to ride, though, Violet still clung to Terra. "The Citadel?"

Terra smiled. "Yeah. You'll love it. It's amazing."

"But…I…" She took a moment to breathe, working up the courage she had once exuded in spades. "…can I stay with you?"

Terra froze. She hadn't been thinking about where her sister would go now. Obviously, she hadn't been planning to let her out of her sight, but it was only now she realized that would mean keeping her aboard a warship.

Still, if a Spectre couldn't keep her civilian sister on the crew deck as a refugee, what good was her status?

So she smiled and nodded. "Yeah. You're with me, Vi."

Violet smiled. Like she hadn't been able to in a long time.

Terra kept an arm around her, appreciating the first good thing to come from this war.

Hopefully, it wouldn't prove to be the last.

* * *

What? Just because I didn't change the Arrival events doesn't mean I'm not still a sucker for happy endings. So sue me. ;D


	65. Crash and Burn

Chapter 65: Crash and Burn

When we dream, we can reach for the stars  
When we reach for the stars, we can fly  
But when we fly, we might crash and burn

Violet took a cot in the med bay for now, in case Mordin needed to keep her under observation while they were finding room for her elsewhere aboard. She promised she wouldn't intrude on his work on the genophage cure and he claimed he didn't mind looking over two patients and Eve seemed to appreciate the company, so everyone went along with it. The entire crew was shocked at the news that Terra's long lost sister was not only alive but here. Well, shocked for all of one hour before they seemed to collectively reach the conclusion that obviously any sister of Commander Shepard's would withstand even batarian slavery long enough to find a way home. She was shaken and traumatized and likely never to be how she was before. But she was with her family again, or at least what little was left of it, and that was good enough.

Terra spent the entire ride to the Citadel explaining to Violet what had happened to her after the raid. The only thing that could pry Terra from her sister was EDI informing her they were able to establish contact with Anderson. The admiral was happy to inform her they'd been able to establish a resistance on Earth and she was happy to inform him that everyone from Grissom Academy was safe and joining the battle and that her sister was alive.

_"_What_?!" Anderson naturally reacted._

Terra smiled. "I can't believe it either. But she's here."

_He smiled back. "Well. It's nice to see some good things can still happen at times like this."_

"It really is. Oh, and just in case you were wondering, Kahlee Sanders is also safe and sound on the Citadel. She asked me to tell you to stay alive."

_He laughed. "Did she now? Thanks, Shepard. Let's hold onto the good news. It might be hard to come by more."_

"You're telling me. Take care, Anderson."

Just as the call was ending, they docked on the Citadel. Terra offered to show Violet around but was met with a refusal, simply stating she wasn't ready yet. Terra figured it was best to give Violet time, show her around the _Normandy_ before taking it any further, and left her to Mordin's care so she could take Jack, Sanders, and the students to where they would be deployed from.

With Terra off the ship, Garrus took it upon himself to step in. Violet was withdrawing into herself in the med bay without Terra there to lean on and the sight of a Shepard quiet and reserved did not sit well with him. Luckily, he knew just how to handle it. He went straight up to deck 1 to retrieve what he needed and then entered the med bay with it, careful not to bother Mordin.

Violet was still startled by the sight of him but quickly recovered, reminding herself he was Terra's friend. More than that, from the sound of the story. Plus, he was hardly more intimidating than the krogan sitting across from her.

He came over to sit on the cot beside her. "Are you OK?"

She didn't look at him but still nodded.

He figured it was best to cut to the chase in this instance, holding out what he had brought her. "I believe this is yours."

She froze at the sight of it, violet blue eyes growing wider. Her hand trembled as she reached for the case, opening it as if she was afraid it would break. Inside, as pristine as the day she last saw it, was the violin her father had crafted for her and her sister had decorated with painted violets.

Garrus smiled to see her reaction. "Your 'disaster-proof box' survived the raid. Terra kept everything in it. It's up in her cabin now. But you should have this."

She ran her fingers across the strings, feeling the tension as if she could tell it needed tuning just by fingering them. "…I didn't let myself forget. They tried to break me and I went along with it, but when they weren't watching, I'd play. Every night, I'd remember how Mom's songs sounded, remind myself…"

He believed it. He could tell just by looking at her or knowing her name what she was capable of. "You're as strong as your sister."

She turned to look at him, the things Terra had told her about the past 16 years seeming to connect when she met his eyes for the first time. "You're in love with her?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

At first, she wasn't sure how to take the news. Then she slowly began to smile. Finally, she closed the case, setting it safely beside the cot to tend to later, and laid her hand gratefully on his. "Thank you."

He knew enough about humans (and about Shepards in particular) to tell what she meant. Not just for returning her violin. For taking care of her sister where she couldn't. He laid his hand over hers in return before turning to go. He'd consider this the first step towards making good on that brother status he was more or less certain he'd gained.

Meanwhile, Terra was again making sure nothing on the Citadel required her attention just yet. She was eager to head back to her sister, so she was glad to see nothing pressing arose. But when she came across certain asari matriarch stationed on the Presidium, she couldn't help but divert her attention for a few minutes. So she sat down by Liara on a balcony overlooking the reservoir. "That bartender?"

"The one the matriarchs sent to spy on me?" Liara retorted snidely.

Terra sighed. "…she's your father."

"I know."

Terra blinked. "You _know_?"

Liara smirked. "I'm a very good information broker."

"And you're not talking to her?"

"Why should I? This is hardly the time for family reunion—" She cut herself off when she remembered what had happened the night before.

And noticed the way Terra was glaring at her. "This is _exactly_ the time for family reunions!" She accented the assertion with a nod in the direction of the bar.

Liara couldn't exactly argue this. "Oh, fine." So she went over and met Matriarch Aethyta, her krogan-sired father, and spent the rest of their stay on the Citadel talking to her.

Terra couldn't help a self-satisfied smile as she strode past. Yet another thing wrong with the galaxy she had somehow managed to correct. If only everything had so simple a solution.

While Terra was headed back to the ship, Mordin was checking on both his patients. "…no, no, no, organ redundancy results in new period before metaphase, can't change that—damage to telomeres, premature aging…"

Violet blinked at him. He clearly didn't notice. "Does he do that often?"

"Incessantly, it seems," Eve shook her head.

Violet smirked, turning her attention to the krogan. "I didn't hear your name."

"I surrendered it. The day I became a shaman for the female clan."

This drew Violet's attention. "How do become a shaman?"

Eve didn't hold back. "You're locked in a cave for a week with just enough food to last. On the eighth day, you'll starve."

Violet appreciated that the krogan wasn't coddling her, but that was still shocking to hear. "What does that prove?"

"Your resolve. Wisdom comes from pain…and the genophage has made us very wise."

Violet leaned forward on the cot, her attention entirely on the krogan woman. "How did you survive?"

"I started digging the wrong way. I was deeper and deeper in the darkness…until I found this." She reached into her pocket and removed a Tuchanka stone. "A simple crystal, but it became my chisel. I dug my way out of the rock and found my way back to the gaze of the sun." Eve quickly took notice of the rapt way Violet was watching the crystal and, with a wry smile, stepped over. "Take it."

Violet looked at her. "But it's yours."

"I do not need it anymore. You should have it. Take it as a reminder that in the darkest times, you can always find the light."

That would be a good thing to remember. So Violet carefully took the crystal, placing it in her pocket until she could find it a new home.

It was about then that Terra came in. "You OK, Vi?"

"Getting there," Violet nodded with a small smile, "I still can't believe you have your own ship."

Terra smirked. "Perks of the job."

"It is good to see humans treat their women with respect," Eve nodded as she moved to return to her own cot, "Your people have placed a great weight on you, commander."

"No more than yours have on you."

Eve smirked as she sat down. "Then maybe we can show the men how it's done."

Terra smiled before turning back to her sister. "We're going to Tuchanka now. Do you want me to stay with you?"

"I'm fine," Violet assured her, "I can call you if I need you."

"Do that." Terra was glad to see her sister was already doing better. Still, she couldn't help but worry. On her way out, she stopped to talk with Mordin. "How are they doing?"

"Both adjusting well so far," Mordin answered, "Could use softer blankets."

Terra smirked. "I'm glad to see they're in good hands."

"Of course. Had to be me."

"Someone else might've gotten it wrong?"

Mordin smiled back. "Don't worry. Will take care of them, have cure ready in no time."

"I know you will, Mordin. But what about after that? What are you going to do?"

"Hmm. Will help with Reapers, then not sure. Many things to consider—work on genophage, work against Collectors, decisions, mistakes. Might go somewhere sunny, sit on beach, watch sunsets, collect seashells."

Terra couldn't help a scoff. "You'd go crazy inside an hour."

Mordin considered… "Might run tests on the seashells."

With that, Mordin went back to work and Terra went off to see the ship to the relay. Violet watched her sister go, marveling at how they'd changed. While Violet had been fighting to stay sane under years of being used and abused and mistreated, while she had somehow succeeded for just long enough to survive, Terra had been pulled into a fight of her own and conquered it, become a hero with friends she could depend on. Violet knew she probably wouldn't live up to that, but she was fine with it. She preferred it this way. When this was over, she could rejoin the galaxy and proudly say that Terra Shepard was her sister.

Terra was reluctant to go out on another mission while Violet was on the ship, but she was still a soldier and she was still needed. In this case, especially, since it was the primarch of Palaven asking for her help. She called Garrus and James down to the shuttle as they approached Tuchanka, all of them ready for whatever this crash site would bring them.

"EDI, what have you got for us?" Terra asked as they flew down.

_"The officer in charge of this mission was Lieutenant Tarquin Victus," EDI said, "I am attempting to raise him now."_

"Victus?"

_"The primarch's son."_

Terra and Garrus exchanged glances. If it was Victus' own son in charge of this mission that had clearly failed, it wasn't good for the primarch. They had to make sure the rescue went better. EDI had a shaky connection to Lieutenant Victus by the time they landed, so Terra was able to establish contact and figure out where they were headed. Now it was just a matter of getting to them.

"A secret mission on Tuchanka is especially odd," Garrus noted as they started moving, "Thoughts?"

"You're the turian," James remarked, "You tell me."

"…I got nothing, lieutenant."

"Yeah, me either," Terra sighed.

The Reapers were crawling all over the crash site, but none of them seemed to expect anyone to come in from behind to save the turians. Their funeral, because this meant Terra, Garrus, and James had a rare opportunity to sneak attack them all. Sitting ducks for the snipers and James' grenades. The only part of the mission Terra thought was genuinely difficult was when the Harvester came and started firing on both them and the surviving turians. But she wasn't letting any of her adopted people fall. The first couple times, they managed to simply chase off the Harvester, wearing it down along the way. It was only when they came to the main crash site that they were forced to truly stand their ground. The Harvester dropped a host of Marauders and Cannibals in their way with a Brute just behind. But with the surviving turians laying down cover fire and Terra and Garrus both channeling every bit of anger they had on behalf of Palaven as a result, the Brute went down all too quickly. Then all they had to do was take cover and let Terra tear into the Harvester, sniping it in each eye and then wearing down its armor to let off one last shot at its heart. It exploded ferociously as it died, taking the last of the Reaper troops with it.

The second it was clear, Terra made her way over to the turians. "Lieutenant?"

"Commander Shepard," Lieutenant Victus stepped up, "My men and I are in your debt."

"What happened here?"

She kind of regretted asking when one of the soldiers snapped, grabbing Tarquin by the armor and glaring at him. "He screwed up!"

"Stand down, soldier!" Tarquin glared back.

"These men are dead because of him!"

"_Hey_!" Terra quickly intervened, pushing them apart, "We're not going to fix anything by yelling!"

While the soldier shook his head and waved her off, Tarquin turned to her. "I'm sorry, commander, we're all on edge."

"I can see why. What were you even doing here?"

"There's a bomb on this planet. We were sent to disarm it."

Terra was ready to say they should abort and evacuate, but those words stopped her cold. "A bomb? How big?"

"Enormous. …Cerberus has it."

She immediately hit the opposite extreme, standing firm. "Lieutenant, if Cerberus has a bomb on Tuchanka, we are finishing this."

"We're down over 30 men! And even if we could finish this, my men don't want to."

"I'll take over from here if I have to, but you can't just give up. Convince them."

"How?"

"What do you mean 'how?'! You're turian! We don't back down, and we don't dishonor the fallen. We honor them by finishing what we started."

She didn't know what Tarquin heard in her words—wisdom, conviction, strong leadership, a bold turian nature—but whatever it was convinced him. He quickly summed up his own of all of it, facing his platoon. "Men, I own what happened here today. But we have to go on."

"Who cares about a few dead krogan?" one of the soldiers retorted sharply, "It's over!"

"No! We are turian! We must stand for the good of the galaxy! Now _move_!"

Terra couldn't help a small smile. He was unproven, but he had the potential to be a good leader even if he didn't live up to his father's war-blooded name. She respected that.

Once he had his men behind him again, he turned back to her. "Commander, you said you were willing to take over? Come with us. We're a shell of what we once were, we could use a hand."

Terra nodded. "We'll move in now. My team can go down the front and draw their fire so you can sneak around to the payload."

"On it. Let's move."

They called the shuttle and followed the turians directly to the coordinates of the bomb. The whole way there, Terra started wondering why Victus hadn't told her that his son was involved or what the original mission parameters were. He had acknowledged her place with the turians. Why wouldn't he trust her?

_"COMM check," Tarquin's voice eventually came over the shuttle systems, "this is the Ninth Platoon. Do you read me, commander?"_

"We hear you, Ninth Platoon," Terra nodded, stepping up to the vid-screen, "We're entering the Kelphic Valley now. What can you tell us about this bomb Cerberus has?"

_Tarquin hesitated. "…it's not Cerberus, commander. It's…it's turian."_

That statement hit her so hard she would've thought she'd been shot. "What do you mean 'turian'?!"

_"We planted it there after the Rebellions. It was meant to be a deterrent if the genophage wasn't enough."_

How could the genophage possibly not be enough?! She couldn't deny the logic made sense, but she also couldn't deny that she had dreaded when something like this would happen—much as she admired the turians, their belief in no-such-thing-as-small-scale-war and the methods of prevention that resulted were always likely to come back and bite them one day.

Now it fell to them to make sure it didn't come back to bite the krogan as well right when they were most needed. The plan held up at first, allowing them to get inside while the turians snuck around the back.

_"Once we've hacked into the system," Tarquin explained, "I'll reprogram the trigger mechanism and disarm it."_

"Got it," Terra nodded, "No trigger, no explosion."

They kept moving, taking down any Cerberus that got in their way. That just proved they had more to worry about when they came to the point where Cerberus was moving the opposite direction. They were evacuating. That couldn't be a good sign. Terra definitely started moving faster when she saw what was happening, racing around the base to get to the bomb site. As soon as they got there, though, Cerberus started moving back in to chase them out. They clearly didn't know any turians. Terra quickly established a defense line with Garrus and James, keeping all of the intruding troopers away from Tarquin as he hacked into the bomb controls. With Garrus and Terra on the high ground and James demonstrating the origin of the term "the best defense is a good offense," Cerberus was forced to clear out again the hard way in a matter of minutes.

And it still wasn't fast enough. "Spirits!" Tarquin exclaimed, "Cerberus hacked the trigger! It's set to detonate!"

"Well, turn it off!" Terra called back.

"I can't! I have to manually separate the trigger from the bomb!"

So Terra focused on organizing their defense and holding their position while Tarquin climbed up the bomb and removed the trigger. It would've worked if one of the seals wasn't locked. He quickly climbed down the seal and removed the lock…destabilizing the supports on the entire structure.

Terra immediately saw what was about to happen. "LIEUTENANT!"

He looked back at her, determination not wavering for one second as he saw what he had to do. "…victory…at any cost." So he tore out the rest of the seal. And fell to his death.

The mission was successful, but it certainly didn't feel like a victory to Terra. While Garrus and James were following her onto the shuttle, she sadly took up the duty of informing the primarch what happened. He didn't respond at first, finally saying he needed to get back to checking on how Palaven was faring and disconnecting before she could respond. So she resorted to sitting down in reverent silence and trying not to think about who else they would all lose before this was over.

James kept his distance, but Garrus eventually took Terra's side. "We're a hard bunch to please…but he did us proud."

Terra nodded, attempting to smile and failing. "Yeah. He did."

Terra went straight to the war room after stowing her gear in the armory. When she opened the door, Wrex was already shouting at Victus for his people planting a bomb in one of Tuchanka's most heavily populated areas and never saying anything about it. She didn't bother thinking before stepping in. "HEY! That's enough, both of you!"

"Shepard, I know how you feel about the birds," Wrex shook his head, "but this is—"

"Too far? As it happens, I agree with you, the turians had no right to do that. But you also have no right to react like this when we're already in a war when you know as well as I do that your people brought it on themselves and, in the turians' place, _would've done the same stupid thing_!"

"That's not—!"

"There's no point arguing about it now! His own son died today making this right!"

Victus finally spoke back up when she said that. "Commander, please, it's OK."

Wrex stood back, withholding a growl. "Fine! Shepard, you made your point. We have bigger enemies to face."

Terra simply turned to the console currently displaying the statistics surrounding Palaven's fall. "…we do."

After Wrex went back to his station, Victus took Terra's side. "I hope you appreciate the need for secrecy now, commander."

Terra scoffed, shaking her head. "I understand why you _thought_ it was needed. But, with all due respect, primarch, secrets are for enemies. Secrets between friends get people killed. You just learned that the hard way."

"…yes. The hardest lesson I'm ever to learn." He looked at the console sadly for a moment. "My son…he died with the respect of his men. I wanted to thank you for that."

She nodded. "If there's anything else I can do for you, sir, you only need to ask."

He nodded with a sigh. "I know."

Terra was about to leave the room when Mordin stepped in. "Shepard! Good news. Finished synthesizing cure. Ready for release to krogan population."

Wrex stepped back in, much happier for this news. "Good, then you can put your knife away."

Terra elected not to respond to that or think of how she would've responded if she had. "What's the plan then?"

"Not sure," Mordin thought it over, "Voluntary inoculation risky. Population too scattered for airborne, unless…wait! Yes! The Shroud!" He turned to display the structure in question on the holo-table. "Created by salarians to repair Tuchanka's atmosphere." He hesitated to say the rest: "Also used by turians."

Victus flinched. "We…used it to spread the genophage. It ended the Krogan Rebellions."

Terra gave him a look. "I'm not sure whether that was a stroke of genius or just plain underhanded."

He shook his head. "Those were desperate times."

"…I know."

"But can use this," Mordin said, "Cure based on same modality. Insert into Shroud systems then disperse to blanket Tuchanka with cure!"

Wrex beamed triumphantly. "You clever little pyjak! That's our best shot right there!"

"Get on it, Mordin," Terra agreed, "I'll have Joker set the course and we'll be ready in the morning."

"Already begun," Mordin nodded, "Will need Eve to come with us. Have her ready when you are."

Terra took this as good news. They were actually about to end the genophage. Before that, though, she would have to tend to the heavy toll this day had taken on her. She headed for the elevator to go up to deck 1.

She stopped before even pressing the button when she thought she heard something. Was…was that…_music_?

Mordin was right behind her. "Something wrong?"

"Do you hear that, too?" Terra asked, "Did you leave an opera recording playing in the med bay or something?"

"Ah…not quite. Should probably follow me."

Curious, Terra stepped onto the elevator with him to head down to deck 3. As soon as the doors opened and she could hear the sound more clearly, she slowly started to realize what it was and descend into shock. She turned the corner to find half the crew was in the mess, listening to the same thing and watching through the viewing glass around the med bay. So she went over to see for herself.

Violet was playing her violin. Playing "Call of the Starbird" as if it had been written for the _Normandy_ rather than for three little colonists.

"Garrus retrieved instrument for her while you were on Citadel," Mordin explained, "Started playing about an hour ago. Seems to be calming both patients…and entertaining crew."

Terra smiled authentically for the first time since they touched down on Tuchanka, fighting how her eyes threatened to tear up to hear her sister play again after so long. She tried to be analytical about it—the strings sounded a little worn from sitting in a box for 16 years and then suddenly being played, so they should maybe get some backups next time they went by the Citadel—but she kept falling back on the memory of her 16th birthday, waking up to that song, or countless occasions when Violet's violin had been a beautiful background to her daily life and reminded her how proud she was to call a genuine prodigy her baby sister.

Naturally, Garrus was right there for her to lean on and ground herself in. "She's even better than you said, even after all this time."

Terra nodded. "She's a Shepard."

Violet stopped playing long before lights out, but it probably wasn't an exaggeration to say that half the crew, or at least half the squad, fell asleep that night with the starlit melody still echoing brightly in their minds.


	66. Nobility

Chapter 66: Nobility

We are often remembered for things we said  
For lives we touched  
For dreams we shared  
But what often proves who we truly are  
Is our final act

Terra hadn't been up ten minutes the next morning before she heard their plan was already falling through. A Reaper was parked at the Shroud, blocking access and attempting to poison Tuchanka's atmosphere.

That was a step too far. She was going to make sure this thing regretted it.

"I think I know how to clear the way," Terra said when she took command in the war room, "But it's gonna need us to work together. We'll need to borrow some of your men, primarch."

Victus hesitated. "That may be difficult. Our losses on Palaven have been tremendous."

Terra answered with a sympathetic glance. "I saw. But if we want to save Palaven before it's lost entirely, we need to take the risk."

He took a moment to consider her words before nodding. "What do you need?"

"Send in a wing of fliers. At the same time, Wrex's troops can attack from the ground. The combined assault should be enough to at least draw its focus so we can disperse the cure."

With the plan in place, they all started preparing for a grand assault. Mordin went off to make his final preparations on the cure and ensure Eve was ready to come with them, Victus and Wrex went to make contact with their troops and establish a battle plan, and Terra called Garrus and EDI down to the armory to gear up. Garrus, naturally, noticed when Terra was delayed in meeting them down there and had a troubled look in her eyes, but he elected not to ask her what was wrong when Wrex, Mordin, and Eve quick to follow them down. He would just have to hope shooting a few things would help her vent until they were free to talk again.

The Reapers were already closing in on the Hollows, the krogan meeting grounds, when they landed. Wrex responded by firing his shotgun the second the shuttle doors opened and taking down the Husks barring their path. While Mordin guarded Eve and Wrex moved in to organize the krogan response, Terra led Garrus and EDI straight through to clear the Hollows. What with the swarm being entirely composed Husks, it was simple enough to deal with as long as EDI was able to keep them at distance so Garrus and Terra could snipe them down.

No sooner had Terra let off a pistol shot to drop the last Husk than Wrex entered, his armor covered in blood as he raised his weapon proudly. "They'll sing battle-songs about this someday! Reaper blood has finally soaked our soil!"

Smiling at the krogan's triumphant battle-cries, Mordin came up to Terra. "Patient stable for now, Shepard. Ready to—"

"What's a salarian doing here?!" a krogan on the other side of the Hollows growled as he approached, "No one said anything about this!"

Mordin flinched back. "Multiple krogan. Problematic."

Terra quickly interceded to block the krogan's path to the doctor. "He's here to help. We're going to cure the genophage."

The krogan sneered at them. "His kind gave us the genophage. Why should we trust him?"

Wrex answered the question for her, storming over to head-butt the offending krogan as harshly as a clan chief could. "Because I do. And so will you, Wreav."

As the rest of the krogan began to snarl, Wreav furiously reached for his shotgun.

"ENOUGH!" All eyes turned to the entrance. Eve stood there, facing them all down as only a krogan queen could (Mordin may or may not have reworked an opera song in her honor, much to Eve and Violet's amusement). "You can stay here and let old wounds fester as krogan have always done, or you can go out there and face the enemy you were born to destroy and win a new future for our children. I choose to fight. Who will join me?"

Terra smiled, gaining a new admiration for the krogan female, and stepped up. "I will."

"And so will I," Wrex agreed with a smile, "Now let's move! There's a Reaper out there that needs killing!"

That was what the krogan needed to hear. They all joined in with one last battle-cry and headed for the tomkahs. Garrus, EDI, Terra, Wrex, Eve, and Mordin managed to squeeze into one and spend the ride over taking account of everything. The turian fliers, Artimec Wing, were on approach. The krogan ground assault team was moving apace. Mordin had everything in place for the cure except for some last minute preparations that could only be completed at the Shroud. Everything was going as planned. Except for one thing that still seemed to be plaguing Terra's thoughts.

Ironically, it was Eve, not Garrus or EDI, who finally spoke up about it. "Commander? You seem troubled. Is there something on your mind?"

Terra sighed. She refused to hold this back. She quickly faced them all and announced it: "The salarian dalatrass contacted me while we were mobilizing. I think you should hear this." She turned to her omni-tool, playing a recording she had managed to secretly make of the entire conversation.

_"Years ago, our operatives sabotaged the Shroud to ensure what you're planning couldn't be done."_

Wrex immediately scowled. "And she thought we wouldn't know any better?!"

"Correctly," Mordin pointed out, "Would likely have fooled tests. But can adjust."

Eve gave Terra a look that went beyond gratitude. "You've just spared our race another genocide, commander."

"I told you we could count on her," Wrex concurred with a smirk.

Terra smiled only a little, but she was filling with joy and relief inside. She had done the right thing, whether or not the salarians now helped at all (and she was perfectly content having only the support of Major Kirrahe and Mordin until the salarians realized grudges weren't worth standing alone). If she could help the krogan recover their culture under the guidance of Eve and Wrex, the ideal leaders for such an endeavor at such a time as this, it would all be worth it.

Garrus smiled to himself. This was the Terra Shepard he knew and loved, sacrificing everything for the sake of a people she admired and cared for (and, by extension, for the turians). Seeing how much this decision must have weighed on her, though, considering the eventual consequences, he prepared to take her side again.

Before anyone moved, the tomkah slowed to a crawl.

Wrex stood up. "Why are we stopping?!"

Terra was wondering the same thing. When the rover finally pulled over, she brought Garrus and EDI outside with her to see what was going on. It didn't take long to find the problem. The road ahead of them had been smashed to pieces at some point. They were going to have to find a new route. Growling briefly to herself at the inconvenience, she turned to her COMM. "Artimec Wing, this is Commander Shepard. We're delayed on a ground approach, you have to postpone your attack."

_"Negative, commander, our approach vector is locked. The Reaper already knows we're here."_ As if to confirm the message, a wing of turian fliers passed by and raced in to engage the Destroyer.

Garrus joined Terra in dreading the outcome. "An airstrike alone won't do it. We have to get in that fight."

"No kidding," Terra snapped, turning to the krogan, "I don't care if we have to _build_ a new road! We are going!"

But it was at that moment that one of the Reaper's counterattacks hit its target, taking out the controls on one of the fliers…and sending it crashing into the road.

Terra just managed to dive out of the way, Garrus right beside her. When she heard Wrex in her ear asking _what just happened_, she quickly responded: "Wrex! Get Mordin and Eve out of here NOW!"

The tomkahs quickly mobilized, driving around the broken road and the remains of the turian flier to get clear.

After recovering from the crash, Terra was forced to find a new way across the fields to the Shroud with Garrus and EDI. As luck would have it, there was a tunnel entrance on the side of the road. The catacombs they lead into were dark and impossible to navigate, but Garrus assured her, along with Wrex over the COMMs, that she was a trailblazer and would find a way through. The real issue was when they felt the whole place shaking.

"Earthquake?" EDI suggested.

"Didn't feel like one to me," Garrus said.

"Wrex?" Terra asked her COMM even as she searched the room with her flashlight for another door, "Are you guys feeling these tremors?"

_"Not from here," Wrex answered, "Maybe the ruins are unstable."_

_"Or something else," Eve spoke up, "It is said that Kalros, the Mother of All Thresher Maws, lives in this region."_

_"Which is another reason to _get out of there_, Shepard! Step on it!"_

Terra didn't need to be told twice. In fact, it was less than a minute later that she found krogan art on the wall. Ordinarily, she'd be ecstatic and amazed to see it, but since it was a representation of a thresher maw unlike any she'd ever seen, it only made things worse. "…I'm guessing this is Kalros."

"Likely not to scale either," EDI added, "We should vacate the area. 'The Mother of All Thresher Maws' does not sound promising."

"No kidding," Garrus said, "When the krogan name a tresher maw, you know you're in trouble. …they don't think anyone's ever going to kill it."

Terra, seeing his point, moved a bit faster. Then more than a bit faster. It was only when they reached a stairwell leading up that she started breathing easier, leading Garrus and EDI up and out. "Wrex, I think we're out of the tunnels."

_"Well, if you can see daylight, that's progress."_

EDI looked around in wonder. "And the color green. Plant life was assumed eradicated in this area."

Terra followed the AI's gaze, looking at an array of foliage clinging to life on the other side of the structure.

_"You're looking at hope," Eve said, "All that's left of it on Tuchanka. This was once a fertile land. It can be again."_

Terra smiled hopefully. "It _will_ be again. We just have to get to the Shroud."

As if she had summoned them, the next corner they turned filled with Reaper troops. Two Ravagers joined the fray, forcing Terra, Garrus, and EDI to take cover until EDI could incinerate them while Garrus and Terra sniped down the Cannibals. They kept moving as soon as they could only to find two Brutes arriving with reinforcements on the other side. This time, Terra simply laid into them with incendiary ammo. She wasn't letting anything get in her way. The next Ravager met the same fate, clearing their path down the bridge to the next structure.

_"Wait!" Wrex called, "Kalros!"_

Just as the tomkahs were rolling under the bridge, a massive thresher maw began to follow them, rising out of the sand just enough for the ridges of its spine to tear through the bridge. Thankfully, it didn't destabilize the bridge enough to collapse it. On the other hand, seeing Kalros and coming so close did nothing for their morale.

_"Thresher maw getting closer!" Mordin cried into the COMMs._

_"Tell me something I don't know!" Wrex snapped back._

_"Metal in truck an excellent iron supplement for maw's diet!"_

Terra almost started laughing. That definitely did help her morale.

Garrus agreed, smirking with her. "And I'll bet Wrex is actually enjoying this…"

They fought their way through what seemed to have once been an arena of some kind. Terra might consider that ironic if she wasn't also wondering how much of Tuchanka must have been peppered with arenas before their uplifting. The Reapers were all over this area, but seeing Marauders among the number just served to stimulate Terra's rage and end the battle even sooner. Within minutes, Terra, Garrus, and EDI were able to jump down and meet Wrex's truck. They then had to speed away while Kalros was distracted eating Wreav's truck (which Wrex was remarkably flippant about), not stopping or even slowing until they were within reach of the Shroud.

"We no longer possess the firepower to disable a Reaper Destroyer," EDI observed bluntly as they piled out of the tomkah.

"We've beaten the odds before," Garrus countered. Then he actually looked in the direction of the Reaper in question. "Getting to that tower, though…I don't know."

"We can make it," Terra assured them, "We just need a plan."

"She might have one," Wrex announced, gesturing to Eve.

"Kalros," Eve said, "We summon her to the Reaper."

Terra had done a lot of crazy things, but this actually threw her. "That's…we…how would we even do that?!"

"The Shroud was build behind an arena dedicated to Kalros' glory." Eve nodded to the fractured structure between them and the Reaper. "The salarians thought she would scare away intruders."

"Appears to have worked," Mordin commented.

"There are two maw hammers within. Striking both of them will call Kalros forth, and she will defend her territory."

Terra shook her head. "This is _insane_…but also _genius_." She smirked. "I'm starting to like you."

Eve released a small laugh. "We'll see if you still feel that way when this is over."

"We're about to find out. Mordin, go around the long way, see if you can sneak into the Shroud and get the cure started. Garrus, EDI, and I will head down the front and strike those hammers."

"Wait," Wrex stepped up, "I want you to know. No matter what happens here, you've been a champion to the krogan people, a friend of Clan Urdnot…" He smiled. "…and a sister to me. From this day forth, the name 'Shepard' will mean 'hero'!"

Terra smiled back, taking his hand in a warrior's salute.

"Now let's show them why!" Wrex readied his shotgun, storming out to begin shooting down approaching Ravagers in a way Grunt would surely appreciate. "I AM URDNOT WREX! AND THIS! IS MY! _PLANET_!"

They moved quickly, for once hoping that their assault on the front lines would draw reinforcements so Mordin wouldn't have to contend with any. As they were clearing the first set of Cannibals and progressing forward, Wrex came over the line to inform them that his defense of the perimeter had managed to completely eradicate any Reaper forces attempting to besiege it and he was also going around the side so that he could raise the hammers for them. All they had to do was get through the structure all the way to the arena grounds.

That matter was complicated when the Reaper spotted them. And opened fire.

All three of them tumbled off of the ledge that took the shot. Considering they weren't even injured after narrowly dodging a shot that would've vaporized them all, Terra figure it was best not to press their luck and started _running _down the line.

"Did we just get shot at by a Reaper?!" Garrus asked.

"Consider that practice!" Terra retorted, "Keep moving, stick to cover when it fires!"

"Cover is not likely to be effective!" EDI said.

"You got any better ideas?!" Terra raced over to duck down behind a collapsed pillar. From the way the Reaper was taking aim, they might be about to test EDI's theory, a prospect Terra was not looking forward to.

Until something else opened fire first. _"Commander, this is Artimec Wing. We'll give the Reaper something else to shoot at."_ The surviving fliers of the turian wing flew past, circling around the Destroyer and drawing its attention away from Terra, Garrus, and EDI entirely.

"Yes!" Garrus rejoiced along with his girlfriend, "I knew they wouldn't give up!"

"Let's make sure they don't have to," Terra nodded in agreement before vaulting over the fallen pillar and racing for the arena grounds.

Naturally, this was the hardest thing she'd ever done (or at least in the top 10), what with the Reaper literally stomping on the grounds and dropping Brutes every five seconds.

"THIS REDEFINES INSANITY!" EDI shouted over the chaotic noise of battle as they all attempted to keep the Brutes at bay.

Terra was ready with a witty remark until she actually looked around. The maw hammers were on either side of the grounds. The Brutes wouldn't stop coming until this was over.

She was going to have to run for it.

She groaned to herself as she realized this and turned to Garrus and EDI. "Cover me!"

"What?!" Garrus asked, "While you do w—?!"

Terra didn't bother letting him start worrying before she had already darted to the right hammer. She just barely managed to avoid a Brute charge and a Reaper stomp to hit the hammer and drop it. If it made a satisfying _thud_, she didn't get to hear it amid all the Reaper howls and Brute growls. She did see the flaw in the plan when she turned to race across to the left hammer and saw that two Brutes had followed her up the ramp. Simple solution, though. The Reaper took only one moment before having to reposition and stomping down on the Brutes, killing them both for her. Then she only had to run, circling around the Brutes that Garrus and EDI were now successfully distracting.

_"Shepard!" Wrex snapped in her ear, "Get those hammers down already!"_

"THERE'S A REAPER IN MY WAY, WREX!" she snapped back as she dove out of the way of the Reaper's claw.

_"Yeah, I know, you have all the fun!"_

She elected to roll her eyes, be amused and/or annoyed at the comment later, and then ran for it, jumping to slam the second hammer down. She knew they had succeeded when the Brutes immediately dispersed and the tremors returned. "GET BACK TO THE TRUCK!" she shouted across the arena to Garrus and EDI, "I'LL TAKE CARE OF THE CURE!" It was pretty clear Garrus didn't want to leave her, but EDI managed to pry him away.

Then Kalros arrived. The Reaper seemed to pick up on what was happening quickly, but it couldn't possibly figure out where to shoot to stop the maw before it erupted from the soil and bit down on the sentient ship's chassis. Just looking at Kalros, never mind seeing her strike, was enough to show anyone why she was considered the mother of all the other maws, formidable and indomitable and so much else. The two titans clashed with force unmatchable, slamming into each other so heavily that the Reaper finally stopped attempting to fire. Even as Terra raced for the Shroud, she couldn't help but watch some of the astonishing battle, like something out of an old kaiju vid but far more awe-inspiring and perilous. She started to regret inciting it, though, when the Destroyer threw Kalros off of it by smashing her into the Shroud, destabilizing the whole structure. She moved faster while Kalros descended back below the ground. When she reached the entrance, she looked back to see Kalros leaping up from underneath to wrap around the Reaper like a boa constrictor and drag it down into the depths.

When Terra came inside, she found Mordin rushing through terminals to prepare his work for release. "Are we ready?"

"Yes," Mordin answered, "Cure ready, inserting now. Procedure traumatic for Eve but not lethal. Maelon's research invaluable."

"She's OK," Terra sighed, relieved they had chosen not to erase that precious data.

"Returning to truck now. Fortunate she survived. Should stabilize Wrex should he get any ideas. Good match. Promising future for krogan."

She knew Wrex would honor his word regardless, but she agreed wholeheartedly, hoping she would see the day the two became the leaders that restored Tuchanka and saved the krogan for good.

A support beam collapsed in a ball of flame, causing a burst of shrapnel to bounce off the other side of the room.

Terra flinched back. Maybe now wasn't the time for this.

"Running out of time," Mordin said, "Should take elevator up to finish initiation."

Terra looked at him in shock. "You're going _up there_!"

"Have to. Need to counteract STG sabotage, ensure viable dispersal."

"Mordin, this whole place is coming down! There's gotta be another way!"

"All controls at top of tower. No time to adjust cure for temperature variance." He gave a solemn look. Almost saddened. "No. No other option. Suggest you get clear. Explosion likely to be…problematic." He started to move for the elevator.

Terra jumped to grab his arm and stop him. "Mordin, no!"

When he faced her, though, she could see the determination and conviction behind the regret in his eyes. "Terra, please. Need to do this. My genophage, my cure, my work…my responsibility."

It was his use of her first name that made her freeze and eventually withdraw. She still wanted to stop him, even if it was the only way, but if he was taking a step like that, he was sure. There was no dissuading him. "…but you're my friend."

He gave her a supportive smile. "Still am. Still will be." He sighed. "Would've liked to collect those seashells."

Her responding smile was dry, humorless. She already missed him for that. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not. Had to be me." Stepping away from her, he entered the elevator and pressed the button. "Someone else might've gotten it wrong." Then he ascended to the control room.

Terra watched him go sadly before finally turning and hurrying out of the collapsing tower. She only just made it outside of the radius of the eventual collapse before she heard a final explosion go off. She turned back to see it had originated on the highest floor. Just as the Shroud released the cure into the atmosphere.

The tomkah pulled up behind her, Wrex, Eve, Garrus, and EDI all piling out to witness the dispersal. For a wondrous moment, there was only the relieved elation at the knowledge they had actually done it.

Then Garrus took Terra's side and realized who wasn't there. "Where's Mordin?"

Terra hung her head sadly, the tears behind her eyes all the answer she needed.

Garrus quickly wrapped a sympathetic arm around her, finally leading her off to collect herself until she could mourn in peace.

He tried desperately not to wonder if this would prove to be only the first of their losses in this war.

An hour later, Wrex took Eve and the squad back to the Hollows, now empty of Husks and blood-raging krogan. "When I was young, my father turned against me in this place. His own son. He tried to kill me! So I had to kill him." He gestured to the far corner. "Right over there."

"That's what the genophage reduced us to," Eve shook her head, "Savages." She turned to Terra gratefully. "But you've changed that today, commander. Now we'll fight for our children, not against them." She then hung her head sadly. "It's just a shame Mordin had to die."

Terra nodded in agreement, leaning against a railing to look sadly into the distance. "He wouldn't have it any other way. I'm sure he's getting the hero treatment in the afterlife right now…and putting in a good word for the rest of us."

"We'll have to name one of the kids after him," Wrex smirked, "…maybe a girl."

Terra would've laughed if she wasn't still upset.

"Oh, you can tell your turian friends I'll be sending troops to Palaven ASAP. And when you're ready to kick the Reapers off of Earth, just let me know. The krogan are back in business."

Terra smiled. "Thank you." She turned to Eve. "What are you going to do?"

"Spread the hope you've given us," Eve answered, "You should do the same. And know that Urdnot Bakara calls you a friend."

Bakara. A good name for a krogan queen. Terra hoped that, wherever he was now, Mordin heard this and knew that he was one as well.

By the time they made it back to the war room, Primarch Victus was already watching the krogan mobilizing. "It looks like Palaven's people will be safe after all soon enough. Thank you, commander. You've kept your word and I'll keep mine—the turian hierarchy will stand with humanity."

This was something Terra had been hoping to accomplish for 15 years. It meant a lot to hear it was finally happening, but any joy she might've drawn from it was a bit dampened at the circumstances through which she'd had to achieve it.

"I'll start dispatching our ships to aid your forces and the Crucible construction immediately. I trust you two can coordinate them?"

Garrus smirked. "Yes, sir."

"Signal us when you're ready to retake Earth and we'll be there. …may the spirits watch over us all." With that, Victus turned to depart the ship and take command of the remaining hierarchy forces.

One second after he'd left the room, Terra turned to lean wearily on the holo-table.

Garrus quickly took her side. "We did it. We're going to save Palaven."

"We'd better. I can't take losing another family."

Much as he sympathized with the sentiment, unable to imagine how he would respond to losing his father and sister now, it was the subtext in her statement that drew him to act. Her crew was her family, too, and she'd just lost one of them. "I can start managing the turian troops right away. You should get some rest."

"I slept last night just fine. I still have things to do."

"I can take care of the crew, too."

She hesitated to disclose her true intention, hesitated to even have it, but she finally looked him in the eye and said it: "…I have to talk to Violet."

Ah. Of course. Someone had to tell Violet that the krogan female she had been sharing a room with was staying on Tuchanka and Mordin was gone. He could see why Terra was both needing and fearing to give her sister that news, but the fact was that Terra didn't have to be the one to do so. "I can tell her for you."

"Garrus, no, she's my sister—"

"And you're my mate. That makes her my family, too. I'll take care of this. You get some sleep. You can spend some actual time with her in the morning when you're not both grieving." He gave her a gentle nudge. "Besides, I know where you sleep. We'll wake you if anything comes up."

Knowing him, she highly doubted he meant that. Unless "anything" turned out to be the ship on fire. Then again, even then, he might carry her out without rousing her. Still, he was unshakable on the matter and she knew better than to argue with him at times like this. So she sighed and relented. "If you insist." And headed up to her cabin without another word.

Garrus was as good as his word. The first thing he did was rip the bandage off and deliver the bad news. Violet didn't take it well, but she, like her sister, seemed to take it in stride in the long run. She must've gotten used to losing people after the raid. Or she hadn't had anyone _to_ lose after the raid and simply hadn't had time to get attached to Mordin. Either way, Garrus felt sorry for her. He wound up deciding to take some time out of his busy schedule of covering for Terra to be there for Violet instead. Amazingly, she didn't seem to mind him sitting down with her. Perhaps she was coming to see him as family in a way. He could hope, at least.

Terra wasn't quite as true to her word, at least not at first. She couldn't rest with so much on her mind. She managed to ease her warring thoughts with some work in her sketchbook, but even then she only fell asleep when the exhaustion of the mission finally caught up with her like a sudden tidal wave. To make matters worse, it wasn't a restful sleep. She was used to nightmares, but this one, the dead forest through which she chased the boy she couldn't save, filled her with cold dread. It was even worse tonight, seeming like every shadow was whispering in the voices of everyone else she had failed—her parents, her brother, Kaidan, and now Mordin. When she woke up alone, the cold and dread woke with her. But at least she was awake.

She would at least be able to console herself in the knowledge that they had been successful so far, that Palaven was being evacuated right now and Garrus and Violet were with her, if she could only shake the feeling that it was only going to get worse before it was truly over.


	67. Coup

Chapter 67: Coup

Change is a rainfall  
It can grow  
It can heal  
But if it comes too quickly  
It can flood

Ironically, what tipped Garrus off that his human needed his attention wasn't her eyes or her posture or her quietness. It was her clothes. For the first time since he came back onboard the _Normandy_, she was in civvies rather than her uniform. Needless to say, it caught his attention and raised a red flag in his mind. Terra Shepard was an artist, spontaneous, passionate, colorful. She didn't just wear black.

Unless she was observing human mourning practices.

He knew for certain he had to take action when she came to down to the mess for food and, instead of interacting with any of the crewmen or finding a new course to set, went straight back up to her cabin. He briefly looked in on Violet to make sure was faring better, finding her wistfully turning a crystal in her hands, before heading straight for the elevator and going up to deck 1. He didn't know what he was going to say. He just knew his mate needed him and he was going to be there for her like he always had.

When Garrus walked in, he found Terra curled up on the bed in tears.

As soon as she heard the door open, she frantically attempted to pull herself together. Even when she saw it was Garrus, she tried to push the tears away and turned so he couldn't see them.

It didn't matter. He had already seen, and he could smell the salt of her sorrow on the air. Without a word, he took her side, wrapping his arm around her and drawing her close. It wasn't like her to cry like this, to have to lean on him for strength, but he couldn't blame her. He knew why.

First Mindoir. Then the original _Normandy_. Now Earth and Palaven both. Every place she'd ever called home had burned. True, Palaven had some hope of being saved now, at least partially, but the cost had been the life of a close friend and there still was no word yet of their family. Even the great Commander Shepard could only take so much devastation before it threatened to break her.

Terra had some difficulty chasing away the tears enough to speak. "It's not getting better."

Garrus sighed, running his talons through her hair in a manner he hoped was somehow comforting. "I know. It's not for any of us."

Suddenly, someone knocked on the door.

Terra quickly pulled herself together as best she could. "It's open!"

Liara walked in. "Commander, there's something you need to—" She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Garrus sitting next to her. "…is this a bad time?"

"No, it's fine," Garrus stood up, "Just…talking."

Liara could clearly tell there was more to it than that, but she didn't say anything. "The salarian Councilor called the COMM room. He wants to talk to Terra."

"Is everyone calling me by my first name now?" Terra scoffed as she stood up.

Liara smirked. "Well, there are two Shepards on the ship now."

Terra smirked with her. "Fair enough."

Garrus turned to Terra as Liara left the room. "You should probably talk to Violet after you're done on the COMMs."

Terra nodded. "I will. Thanks for taking care of her last night."

"Anytime, Terra."

Ten minutes later, the ship was en route to the Citadel to speak to the Councilor in person, and Terra was headed down to see Violet. She found her sister running her hand along a workbench in the med bay as the other hand turned over a small crystal. "Vi?"

Violet jumped back, clutching the crystal tighter as she turned to face her.

Terra held her hands out in a signal to stay calm. "It's just me. Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."

Violet simply looked at her. "Right."

"Are you OK?"

She cast her gaze back to the workbench, Terra only now realizing it was the one Mordin had been constantly working on. "I just can't believe he's gone. He was good to me and E—Bakara. I felt better knowing he was there. And now…"

"You still have me," Terra quickly stepped in, laying her hand on her sister's shoulder, "I'm sticking with you this time."

"I know." She sighed. "We were running. I tripped on something. When I looked up, you and Nathan were gone. I tried to catch up, but I lost you. I turned a corner and they caught me. Nathan came running in right as they tried to strap me down and—"

"I saw," Terra cut her off sadly, fighting the way her mind jumped back to that moment under the hill when she had watched Nathan's neck snap and Violet get dragged away kicking and screaming.

Violet clutched the crystal tighter, remembering how Bakara had said it would help her fight the darkness and hoping it rang true. "It all runs together after that. Years of pain and loneliness and struggling just to remember who I was. Until the Alliance came and brought me back. I knew Nathan, Mom, and Dad were gone, so I thought you must be, too. So I just had them take the implant out and then let them send me off to the Academy. I was so certain I had no place there." She turned her newly hopeful eyes to meet her sister's. "And then you found me."

Terra smiled, taking her hand. "I would've found you sooner if I'd known where to look. Or thought there was a chance they'd keep you alive this long." She scoffed. "I should've known that much. You wouldn't give up."

Violet responded silently, her eyes falling back to the crystal in her hand.

"I know there's a lot going on…and losing Mordin was hard…on all of us…" She sighed, shaking off the sensation of grief and wrongness that had struck her when she'd stepped off the elevator and seen Mordin's name on the memorial wall with Kaidan's. "…but you're safe here with us. We're going to stop this."

"For Mindoir?"

Terra nodded. "For Mindoir. For Earth. For Palaven. For everyone who isn't here anymore."

Violet gave her sister a curious look. "You were really a turian."

Terra released a small laugh. "Something like that."

"With Garrus. What about the rest of his family?"

Terra hesitated, finally sighing sadly. "His mother was sick, she died a couple months ago. His father and sister were supposed to be on the first evacuation ship off of Palaven when the Reapers hit, but the city fell too fast. They might have made it, but we lost contact, so we don't know."

Violet's curiosity turned to sympathy. "They're coming back. I want to meet them."

Terra smiled at the thought, but only a little. If her past experience was anything to go by, she was balanced in the middle of a seesaw of gains and losses where family was concerned. She lost her entire family on Mindoir to gain Garrus and his family. Then she'd lost Kaidan and 20 crewmen on the _Normandy_ to meet everyone on the squad she would come to view as a battle-family (which was perhaps the translation of the krogan concept of krantt, now she thought about it). She could only hope that regaining Violet was the balance for losing Garrus' mother and not that it would also cost the rest of his family. It would be devastating enough for her. She couldn't see Garrus fall apart.

Thankfully, EDI drew her focus from those thoughts. _"Commander, we are approaching the Citadel."_

That was fast. Terra turned to Violet. "I have to go take care of this. Don't worry, I'll be back before long and you can still call me or Garrus anytime."

"I'm just waiting here?" she asked, glancing around the sterile room that was now completely empty except for her.

"We'll find you a real place to stay when I get back. Plus, Dr. Chakwas will be coming back here before long, and she's one of the best."

Violet nodded warily. "OK."

Seeing her sister's hesitation, Terra hugged her. "We're going to get through this. We're still family."

Violet smiled, returning the embrace. "Always."

Reluctant to leave Violet's side though she may have been, Terra quickly made her way up to the bridge. She arrived just as Joker was contacting the control tower and asking for docking permission. So she shared in his suspicion when they were met with silence. That wasn't right. The control tower was like an Earth airport, constantly manned, and as Joker was quick to point out, they had backup generators to prevent any power outages from causing crashes within range of the Wards. Something was wrong. Joker took the initiative and began scanning open channels for some other means of contacting someone on the station. As luck would have it, he managed to connect Thane to the COMMs.

_"Shepard," Thane said, "Cerberus is attempting to take over the Citadel."_

She wasn't sure what was worse—the act itself or the timing. Either way, she was going to make sure Cerberus regretted it. "Is C-Sec holding?"

_"I don't think so. I'm headed to their headquarters now to make sure Cerberus doesn't capture it—they'd take the whole station if they did."_

"What about Ashley?"

_"She made it out of the hospital, but we got separated. She went to protect the Council."_

Good. That was good. As long as Ashley was safe, she'd be the best hands the Council could be in, and their survival would be crucial at a time like this. "Alright, stay out of sight as long as you can. We're moving in." She turned to Joker. "Get us as close to C-Sec HQ as you can." She then started racing for the elevator, calling out orders through the COMM with every step. "Cortez, get the shuttle ready! Garrus, Liara, get down to the armory, we need to move fast! EDI, filter Thane into our COMMs, keep the ship safe, and see if you can't hack a few Cerberus systems to give us an edge."

They managed to deploy in two minutes. The shuttle couldn't have gotten through the C-Sec any faster if it had FTL jumped. When she saw that Cerberus was indeed assaulting the HQ and the last C-Sec officers guarding the main doors was downed, Terra didn't bother waiting for the shuttle to land before she threw open the door and leaped out to jump right into the fray. Garrus and Liara reacted with similar haste, jumping out behind her to open fire. Cerberus hadn't been expecting them, so they managed to get a few good sneak attacks in before their shots gave them away and called in nearby reinforcements. Even with the extra numbers, though, Cerberus couldn't regain the advantage and found their siege broken.

Commander Bailey was still alive, injured by the door. Terra managed to get him on his feet so he could help them into the headquarters and secure it. Once that was taken care of, he was able to put them on the path to finding the salarian Councilor. They had to fight their way through the upper floors of C-Sec HQ to get on the way to the Presidium, trying to funnel the enemy forces to—

"RIDGEFIELD!" Garrus called when they reached a locker room, "LAMONT! YOU ALIVE?!"

"Could you maybe not alert everyone in the station?!" Liara hissed.

"If gunfire doesn't put them on notice, I sure won't!"

Liara rolled her eyes even as she consented he had a point.

Terra elected not to take sides in this matter, focusing on leading the way up out of the station and to a Presidium office building. "Are we going the right way, Garrus?"

"Yeah, the Councilor's office is just up those stairs," Garrus nodded, pointing out the way.

So Terra headed up and took point. The room was free of hostiles, but… "Bailey, Cerberus beat us here. They took out the executor and two salarian bodyguards."

_"Well, keep searching anyway," Bailey replied, "If you don't see the Councilor's body, don't count him out yet."_

Garrus started using his knowledge of the area, searching for some sign of where the Councilor might be hiding. It didn't take long for him to catch sight of movement in the dining area below. "Terra."

Terra came over to see what he'd found, turning just in time to see the cause of the movement coming out of a cloak to reveal itself as the Councilor. "Got him. We're heading down now." She turned to return to the stairs, Garrus and Liara moving ahead of her. But stopped when her cybernetic hearing caught something. More movement. Confused, she turned back to the window.

An actual ninja had just dropped from the ceiling. She wouldn't be sure how to take that, but it was hard to miss the Cerberus logo on his uniform.

She moved fast, one pistol shot shooting out the window so she could dive through it and land in a roll right in front of the swordsman. "Unless you think your brain could use a cool breeze, I'd back off."

"Shepard, he's going to kill us all!" the salarian Councilor called, careful not to turn his back on the swordsman.

"Not if I can help it."

"I mean Udina. He's staging a coup. He led Cerberus here."

Terra was surprised that she was shocked. She had never trusted Udina, but she hadn't thought he would stoop that low. Still, the Councilor was a salarian and wouldn't make a claim like this without proof. She was going to take Udina down for this. First things first, though, she was going to take down this swordsman. She could hear Garrus and Liara taking up position behind her. "Three against one. It's already over."

But the ninja just smirked. "No. Now it's fun."

Terra was primed to make him eat those words, but she didn't have to. Someone else got the jump on him for her. Thane appeared from nowhere, arming a Phalanx at the swordsman's head. Unfortunately, the swordsman heard it, whipping around to counter before Thane could fire. The two wound up in a spectacular melee during which Garrus and Liara pulled the salarian Councilor aside to safety. Terra was prepared to rush in and give Thane a hand, but the brawl was moving so quickly that she would only get in Thane's way if she rushed in and she couldn't risk firing into it without possibly hitting him. It was only when Thane lost sight of the ninja long enough for him to activate a cloak that she could take action, even if it was simply to focus her cybernetic-enhanced senses to try to track the silent, invisible movements. The swordsman foolishly let his cloak down before striking, the sound of him drawing his sword prompting Thane to whirl around and open fire. The two charged each other, Thane readying a biotic strike…

…and the swordsman readjusted his stand at the last second, driving his blade into Thane's gut.

Terra felt it as if she had taken the hit herself. "Thane!" When the initial shock of watching her friend fall in a pool of his own blood wore off enough for her to take notice of the swordsman retreating, she let her rage take over and stormed after him, firing every chance she got and hitting nothing but shield. It was only when the would-be assassin hopped on a skycar and sped away that she calmed down with a cathartic growl of fury and noticed Thane limping over to lean against the wall and help her attempt to shoot down his attacker. She quickly holstered her weapon and rushed over to help him, lowering him to a safe position. "Are you OK?"

"I have time," he assured her, "Catch him."

Gladly. As soon as she saw Garrus and Liara rushing to catch up to her and confirming the Councilor was in a safe place, she hit her COMM. "Bailey, the Councilor's secure for now and Thane needs medical attention." Barely listening to the promise to send reinforcements to their coordinates, she turned to grab another skycar. "Get the word out—Udina's trying to seize power. Get me a route to the rest of the Council _now_."

That plan went about as well as could be expected. They made it halfway there before the ninja came back and disabled their motor, crashing them in the Presidium markets and running away before Terra could retaliate. Terra wasn't one to be deterred, leading Garrus and Liara past every Cerberus attempt to halt their progress. Phantoms, Nemeses, and even an Atlas stood in their way. All fell. It was only when they reached the elevators and found the ninja had jumped one ahead of them and taken off before they could catch him that their progress actually halted. But Liara took the initiative and used her biotic strength to force open the door of the next elevator over. Terra took half a second to look before leaping into the shaft. Bailey hacked the elevator they landed on to climb the shaft at top speed so they could catch up to the ninja's and shoot out its power supply, dropping it 30 floors.

"Good riddance!" Garrus triumphantly declared.

Terra wholeheartedly agreed. Then she looked to the other side and saw another elevator fast approaching.

Garrus barely scanned it before he found what they needed. "The Council's in there!"

"_Jump_!" Terra called, already doing so. Unfortunately, the occupants only heard the thud and assumed it was Cerberus, prompting Ashley as the Council's current bodyguard to open fire. Terra just barely managed to roll out of the way of the shots. When the elevator stopped to let the Council off, Liara again forced open the emergency hatch so they could drop in and follow. They caught up just as the Council reached a dead end and started to double back, just in time to seal the door behind them and prevent the obvious trap from snapping shut.

"Shepard?" Ashley asked, plainly confused, "What's going on?"

"She's blocking our escape!" Udina declared, "She's with Cerberus!"

Terra scoffed. "You could've come up with a more plausible excuse, you know. You clearly had time to think of one."

Ashley looked between Udina and Terra, still not seeing what was happening. "What are you talking about?!"

"Udina set this up. He brought Cerberus here. The salarian Councilor confirmed it."

Udina shook his head. "Please. You have no proof. You never do."

"Cerberus is closing in on us right now! If you go through that door, they'll kill you all!"

Having already put behind the concept of Terra working with Cerberus, Ashley knew there had to be more to this than Udina claimed. But she was still a Spectre now, sworn to protect the Council. Though she didn't draw her gun just yet. "I want to believe you, Shepard, but you're still the one with weapons drawn. It doesn't look good for you."

That Terra could fix. She was hesitant to lower their guns when the instigator of this entire assault was right there, but Udina couldn't possibly move fast enough to avoid all three of them anyway, so they could afford to stand down. So she promptly signaled Garrus and Liara to do so. "You know me, Ash. You know I wouldn't do this unless I was absolutely certain."

"This is ridiculous," Udina spoke up again, "We're wasting time. I'm overriding the lock." He went over to a nearby terminal to hack the door Garrus and Liara had sealed.

As soon as he said it, Ashley started putting the pieces together. She _did_ know Terra Shepard. Not as well as Garrus or Tali or Liara, but she knew her all the same. The commander was a soldier, an adopted turian, unshakable in her ideals. She loved the galaxy they all called home in a way few could understand. She would die before standing with a syndicate that stood against the unity she had always aspired to, especially when their goal would leave that beloved galaxy divided and preyed upon to extinction. She'd seen the sorrow in Terra's eyes leaving Anderson on a burning Earth, heard the pain in her voice when she spoke in the hospital of Palaven's similar fate and their missing family members, remembered their conversations of the poetry and art she'd been inspired to create by seeing all the wonders the Reapers wanted gone that Cerberus clearly didn't care about…

Ashley made up her mind. Udina had never stood with them. Terra had. So she sighed as she reached for her gun… "I'm gonna regret this." …and turned it on Udina.

Terra smirked. "No. You won't."

"Udina!" Ashley ordered, her finger already reaching for the trigger as she took aim, "Step away from the console!"

Udina didn't listen. He never had. He never would. When the asari Councilor tried to talk him down, he pushed her to the ground and drew a weapon of his own.

Terra didn't even have a chance to pull her pistol back out before Ashley fired.

Ashley only had five seconds of shock, her hands shaking even as she clutched her gun tighter, before something drew their attention. The door was being forced open from the other side. Terra, Garrus, Liara, and Ashley all took aim on it until the moment it opened to reveal Bailey on the other side.

"I don't understand," the asari Councilor stepped up, "You said Cerberus was right here."

"They were," Bailey said as he stowed his own weapon and powered down his omni-tool, "But they beat feet into the keeper tunnels when they realized we were coming. Sorry, Councilors, I'll say it plain: Shepard just saved the lot of you."

The turian Councilor turned to Terra. "I suppose I owe you again, Shepard. Not just for my life but for Palaven as well."

"You don't owe me anything for Palaven, sir," Terra assured him, "It's my home, too. I did what I had to do to keep it safe."

That was the end of it. They cleared the area and C-Sec set to securing the entire station. There was no sign of the ninja—he wasn't even on the security cams thanks to a high-tech VI he'd jacked into their systems—but Terra knew they'd see him again. Her concern was making sure the Citadel stayed safe.

And Thane.

The second she had word that the hospital was back in full operation, she headed straight there. Kolyat was already there, donating blood for his father, but Thane was too far gone where his syndrome was concerned for it to make a difference. He was dying. Not at some distant point in the future when oxygen failed him. Right now. This soon after losing Mordin, Terra was certain it wasn't right. But she had learned long ago that life was rarely fair, especially where she was concerned. All she could do was be there for Kolyat and say goodbye.

"Commander," Thane nodded as she took his side, "It appears I won't be joining you this time."

She smirked. "You were there when it counted. And you'll be with us in spirit. That's enough. …you've been too good a friend to me to let me down."

He smiled weakly. "That assassin should be embarrassed. A terminally ill drell managed to keep him from his target."

She let out a small laugh, but the humor was dampened with premature grief. "You were amazing out there. The Councilor says you're a hero, and I'm inclined to agree."

"…thank you." He breathed, though trying that much roughened his voice and reduced him to coughing. "There's something I must do while I still can, I must…" He struggled to regain control of his breath long enough to speak so he could say what he needed to: "Kalahira, I ask forgiveness. Kalahira, whose waves wear down stone and sand…" The coughing again intruded.

But Kolyat stepped in, adopting a prayerful stance. "Kalahira, wash the sins from this one and set him on the shore of the eternal spirit."

Thane looked proudly at his son. "Kolyat, you speak as the priests do. You have been spending time with them."

Kolyat nodded before turning to Terra. "I brought a prayer book. Commander, would you care to join me?"

Terra didn't feel like it was her place to, but it seemed disrespectful to her friend's memory not to accept. So she agreed.

"Kalahira, this one's heart is pure but best by wickedness and contention."

Terra leaned over to pick up where he left off. "Guide this one to where the traveler never tires, the lover never leaves, and the hungry never starve." She smiled almost tearfully at the hopeful tone in this ode to the lost, as poetic and true as anything she had ever written. "Guide this one, Kalahira…and she will be a companion to you as she was to me." Confusion struck her, but something else struck her harder and first. Glancing back to Thane, she found his gaze locked on the window, on the Presidium outside already slowly recovering from the attack. He had already breathed his last. Sadly, she approached and did one of the gestures of respect for the fallen that she had found to be near universal, closing his eyes as his soul departed to the shore it had longed for. After a moment of silence in reverence of this passing, she turned to Kolyat. "…why did the last verse say 'she'?"

Kolyat was clearly struck with grief as she was, but he could explain this much. "The prayer was not for him, commander. He has already asked forgiveness for the lives he has taken. …his last wish was for you."

…oh. To think that he had cared for her enough to devote his final plea to her…she hadn't realized how much she had meant to him, how much hope and purpose in his final days she had been responsible for. Maybe one day she'd even realize that was enough. For now, though, she simply turned to give the fallen assassin—no, crewmate—her last fond farewell: "Goodbye, Thane. I hope you're back with Irikah now. …I'll meet you there."


	68. Forevermore

Chapter 68: Forevermore

Impermanence clings to everything  
Where few things can, it persists  
Even life, in its way, must end  
But love is forever

Ashley was waiting at the dock when Terra went back to the _Normandy_. Hackett had asked her to join the fleet, but since she was a Spectre now, she could technically dictate her own assignment if she thought there was a better place for her. So Terra gladly accepted her request to rejoin the _Normandy_ crew. After taking a second to warn her about EDI's new body.

Before they headed out for a new setting, though, Terra received a call from a certain Aria T'Loak with a proposition. She was hesitant to go along with it, but she did. Aria met her in a skycar, taking her on a drive around the docks and back (too many eyes and ears in Purgatory, she claimed) to explain what was going on: Cerberus had taken Omega from her as a tactically powerful position and she wanted it back in exchange for a hefty supply of ammo and troops even Terra would find hard to turn down.

"Why do I get the feeling there's a catch to this?" Terra asked.

"Just one," Aria assured her, "I have some objections to the company you keep, so you'd have to leave the _Normandy_ and her crew behind."

Terra immediately waved her off. "Out of the question. I have people that matter to me on that ship that I am not leaving for that long. Not to mention the last time I went on a mission without my squad, I wound up having to blow up a mass relay to keep the Reapers from getting here too soon."

Aria smirked. "I appreciate your loyalty, but this is a deal-breaker. It's not like you'd be going in completely solo this time."

"I still don't like the idea of leaving my ship unattended."

"It'll be waiting in the Citadel system, which you just ensured is still the safest place in the galaxy."

"You're really not budging, are you?"

She shrugged. "Let's just say…I want you all to myself."

Terra liked this even less now, but Aria was relentless and making a great offer. If it was best for the galaxy, she had to do it. So when she went back to the ship, she reluctantly asked Joker to cross the system to rendezvous with Aria's fleet.

Naturally, Garrus met her in the CIC. "We're moving again already? Where we headed?"

Terra wouldn't deny that some small part of her had been hoping to sneak out before he noticed, but she could never do that to him. "Aria wants me to help her retake Omega."

Garrus had become too well-versed in reading between her words not to catch the "alone" behind these. "Terra, going with Samara was one thing. This—"

"It's taking a whole host of assets from Cerberus and she'll give us resources we need. I have to at least try."

"Not without me."

"Oh, believe me, I tried to argue that." She sighed. "Doesn't matter. I need you here."

He gave her a wary look. "Is this that 'keep the ship safe' excuse again?"

"It actually applies now. The Reapers are in play and Cerberus could get cocky again." She looked down regretfully. "Plus, we have Violet now."

Ah. Garrus couldn't exactly argue with that. Well, he could try, at least point out that Violet was 30 years old and, civilian or not, strong enough to survive batarian slavery for half of her life. Not to mention Ashley, Javik, Liara, James, and EDI were all there to cover for him. It wouldn't matter what he said, though. The fact was that Terra wouldn't want to leave her sister in the first place after those 16 years and Garrus was the only one she would ever wholeheartedly trust to protect Violet in her stead, whether it was necessary or not. Time for him to step up as a mate should. So he sighed and relented. "Alright."

She let her relief and gratitude show as she met his eyes with a regretful but hopeful smile. "Thank you. Don't worry, I'll make it up to you when I get back."

He smirked. "I'm sure you will. What do we do until then?"

She shrugged. "I'm sure the crew could use some time off from worrying about war if they want to play on the Citadel while the cat's away."

"I wouldn't exactly call you a cat."

She rolled her eyes. "I was also implying you might show Violet around for me."

He hadn't been expecting that. But he could understand why she would suggest he take one of the opportunities she had been looking forward to herself—time for him and Violet to get acquainted so they could be more comfortable around each other, let Violet off the ship to see the galaxy her sister loved so much, etc. So he smiled to let her know he appreciated the suggestion. "That I can do."

This time, she showed her gratitude with a hug.

"Commander!" Joker called from the bridge, "We're on approach!"

Terra reluctantly began to pull away.

Garrus grabbed her by the arm before she got far. He couldn't stop her, but he had every intention of taking as much time as they could.

Seeing his point, she smiled again and leaned in to kiss him.

He took a moment to hold her close and savor each sensation. Then when they separated to catch their breath, he sadly watched her go and started counting the minutes until he'd see her again.

The _Normandy_ was docked on the Citadel again inside of 15 minutes. Garrus was already wondering where Terra was and what she was doing right now, but he focused on heading down to the med bay. Terra could handle herself. He had another Shepard to worry about. One who was playing a somber tune on the violin when he stepped off the elevator onto deck 3. He didn't want to interrupt the song, so he kept his pace slow as he approached the med bay and only opened the door when the last note rang out.

Violet didn't flinch at the sight of him this time, merely nodding in greetings before turning to carefully place her instrument back in its box. Garrus couldn't help but admiringly notice how she gripped the bow the same way Terra would grip a paintbrush or pencil…or gun.

He shook off the thought, cautiously taking a few steps closer. "Terra's gonna be gone for a while."

She looked at him, the look in her eyes unsettled. "Where'd she go?"

"She took a mission in Terminus."

Violet knew she should've been worried, having heard about the dangerous, lawless region known as the Terminus Systems, but she had seen her sister stand fearlessly in battle and heard her speak of the Reapers encroaching on the entire galaxy as a hated enemy rather than an unstoppable force. She knew Terra would be fine. What really prompted her reaction was Garrus' presence to give the news. "You didn't go with her? You go everywhere with her."

He smirked. "Not this time. She needed me to stay with you."

She turned to gently stroke her violin case. "I don't need anyone to stay with me."

He took half a second to wonder if she would still have the objection had it been him sent on the mission and Terra staying behind. Then he moved over to sit on the cot beside hers. "Not here. On the Citadel."

He wasn't sure if the look she gave him was panicked or just stunned. "What?"

"We're docking right now. Terra thought you might want to see the sights while we still can."

Violet almost immediately started curling up on herself. "I…I don't know if I should…"

This he had to take action for. He had plenty of experience comforting a "fish out of water" human, after all, so he knew what to do. He drew just enough closer to place a supportive hand on her arm and ignore the way she recoiled upon first feeling his talons. "You can't stay here forever. You need to get out there, be free again, see what you haven't had the chance to before. Otherwise, you'll always be a slave hiding from the monsters."

She was ready to shut him out completely when his words got to her. That did seem to be what Terra was indirectly telling her—to put those days behind her and remember who she was, to be strong enough to defeat those particular monsters once and for all. So she hesitantly relaxed and slowly began to pull herself up. "Alright. Let's go."

He stood up, ready to lead her out. "Now you sound like the adventurous Violet she bragged about."

As she followed him, she found herself smiling. She had been brave and adventurous and confident before, perfectly happy with who she was but always curious. She did want that back. Especially if Terra missed it so much.

Violet reluctantly followed Garrus out of the ship and onto the Citadel. The station was still a bit beaten up, but the sight of it from the dock was still enough to widen her eyes with wonder. Garrus, whether from seeing some joy in her eyes or from seeing the resemblance to Terra's first sight of the station, smiled at her reaction, giving her a moment to absorb the view before starting to give her the tour. She stayed close to him, wary of every single stranger they passed even as she tried to take in all the scenery and the mixed population. It was gratifying to him to know that she felt safe around him and seemed to be calming as they made their way along. It was also comforting to know she wasn't going to run off without him and risk incurring Terra's wrath by losing her. They didn't speak much, the small conversations they did share still leaning on Terra as a go-between even when she was on the other side of the galaxy, but they seemed to be getting to know each other all the same. Violet could tell that Garrus was someone she could trust, someone who shared an incomparable bond with her sister, and Garrus could tell that Violet was just like her sister in all the ways that mattered even if it wasn't displayed in quite the same way, something he could only deeply admire. By the time they stopped at the Presidium, it was safe to say they'd accomplished what Terra had hoped they would.

Violet sighed as she looked down at the reservoir. "This was a place I always wanted to see."

"Now you have," Garrus said as he took her side, "Worth the wait?"

She shrugged. "Depends how you look at it." She glanced over to where the Cerberus attack had left smoking wreckage that C-Sec was currently attempting to fix. "…you're going to fix this?"

He nodded. "We're going to try. Everything we can."

"It's Terra. She won't give up."

He smiled. "No. She never does."

She took a moment longer to take in the view, only stopping when she noticed something. "Do you hear that?"

He listened with her, smirking when he realized what it was. "Yes, that is, in fact, an asari music store."

Violet almost immediately raced to follow the sound.

Garrus shook his head in amusement as he followed her. Most of the Presidium market stores were relegated to a counter and a purchase terminal, but since the asari took art and cultural history so seriously, this one was a dedicated shop that clearly hadn't been considered important by Cerberus and thus was relatively unharmed. Which meant that Violet was able to find a place to sit down and take in the collection and every note over the speakers as Garrus watched her. He wasn't as musically sensitive as she was, but he was fairly certain she was entirely capable of playing by ear and was even now picking apart the notes that were washing over her. It made him smile again, finally seeing the Violet that had lived on Mindoir 16 years ago.

It also gave him an idea.

Five minutes later, when he approached Violet to let her know they should be on their way, he had something for her. "I know it's not the same as having one made for you, but…"

Curious, she reached out and opened the box, gasping and, had she not been sitting down, almost collapsing at what she found inside it. First he had restored the violin she had so loved. Now he had found her a flute to replace the one she had never had the chance to receive. Without even thinking, she snapped the box closed, holding it close like a precious jewel, and hugged him.

Garrus hadn't quite been expecting that reaction. Still, at least it was a pleasant surprise. So he smirked and gingerly returned the embrace before helping her back to her feet and leading her back to the ship.

When Terra returned to the ship the next day, she entered to the cheery tune of "Sunswept" and, upon realizing it was her sister playing a flute, was utterly stunned though delighted.

Garrus, naturally, was waiting for her at the door, smiling at her reaction. "There may have been an asari music store that carried some specially crafted instruments from every species on the Citadel."

Terra laughed. "I'm glad I sent you down there with her. …this is exactly what I needed to hear."

He heard the discontent behind her words, quickly taking her side and wrapping an arm around her waist. "Are you OK?"

She shrugged. "Everything worked out alright. Aria's even living up to her word. It's just…" She sighed somberly before turning to him. "There was a turian involved. She kind of reminded me of you. …she didn't make it."

He stayed close, letting her lean into him and release the stress of a long, hard, costly fight. After a moment of strangely comforting silence, he took action. "We're going out."

She looked at him in confusion. "What?"

"You need a break while we're still on the Citadel to take one. Go change out of your armor and meet me at the docks."

She gave him a suspicious look. "What are you up to?"

He smirked as he started for the airlock. "Do you trust me or not?"

She watched him go, smiling at the prospect of time alone with him, before heading up to deck 1 to change and then down to deck 3 to briefly see Violet. Then she went through the airlock to the Citadel docks and found Garrus.

"You ready?" he asked as she approached the skycar he was standing beside. He couldn't help but smile appreciatively to see her in casual civvies that were more her typical color palette and less black.

"Ready for what?" she asked even as she climbed in with him.

"Something that doesn't involve Reapers," he answered pointedly as he closed the doors.

"Like what, a hanar poetry reading?"

He groaned. "No offense, but if the galaxy is about to end, I'm not going out on the phrase 'This one feels like a flower.'"

She immediately busted out laughing at his alarmingly accurate impression.

He smiled at the sound of her laughter before turning on the engine and starting them on their way. "No, I thought we should go somewhere we're not supposed to."

She smirked, leaning back in her seat. "Now you're talking."

So Garrus flew them up the Presidium to a walkway overlooking the lake. It was off-limits, but there was room for them to land the skycar and step out to appreciate the scenery.

The second she saw the view, Terra smiled so brightly her eyes sparkled (at least the way Garrus saw it). She had thought it would be impossible to top their visit to the edge of the reservoir, but this blew it away. They could see the entire Presidium from up here, greens and blues and echoes of light blending more perfectly than she could ever do justice to should she try to capture it. "…it's incredible."

Garrus smirked. He agreed the view was impressive, but he only had eyes for her. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't hope it would inspire a certain…_mood_."

She smirked with him, glancing at him from the corner of her eye. "Something on your mind?"

He hesitated, just enough for her to realize what the answer would be before he even said it. "Actually, yeah."

Now she turned to face him completely, wondering what could be bothering him.

He sighed, taking a moment to collect the words and hope they conveyed his feelings well enough. "I've been thinking about things lately. Well, not just lately, since before I went to Menae. I don't know how any of this is going to go, but I do know…I wanna do this right. Not just by my people's standards, but by yours as well."

She could understand his feelings just fine, true, but his words didn't portray his intentions. Confused, she finally outright questioned him "What exactly are you saying?"

He had spent his words. It was time for action. So he took a small box from his pocket that she instantly recognized as similar to the one her necklace had been given to her in.

And he knelt down on one knee.

Instantly realizing what was happening, she took a stunned step back, words failing her entirely as she stared at him.

He had kind of expected the reaction, so he focused on saying what he needed to say. "I'm saying I don't want to live one more day without you in my life." He opened the box to display that the contents were not a necklace but a ring, one forged of Palaven metals but encrusted with three Earth sapphires, one cut into the shape of a bird and bookended by two shaped like stars. Her necklace had been a symbol of her acceptance into his family. This ring, its twin, was a symbol of every bond they shared beyond that, including their love. "And I found a way."

She still found it hard to speak. As the weight of his actions truly settled on her, she started finding it hard to even breathe. "Garrus, I…this is…" She finally moved closer to kneel down in front of him. "You're actually…?"

"I am." He had been unshakable in the decision to make the proposal, but now that it was out there… "Did I do this wrong? This isn't something we talked about a lot before, so I had to research it to make sure and I—"

She almost laughed as she shook her head. "No. No, there is no wrong way." She took a moment to appreciate the sincerity and longing in his sapphire eyes. She couldn't imagine living without them—without him. Ever since the day they met, she had needed him. They were mated. At the thought of this final step, she didn't even ponder or consider. She smiled resolutely. "I think we both already know what I'm gonna say." She laid her hand lovingly on his scars. "I still wanna hear you ask it, though."

He smiled back, reciting the words that were tradition to her kind with more conviction than he had ever recited a pact of his own people. "Terra Luna Shepard…will you marry me?"

In her younger years, she had dreamed of hearing those words. All of those dreams paled in comparison to the moment they resounded from his voice. For the first time in far, far too long, tears of joy came over her. "Yes."

Her joyful tears were echoed in an elated hum through his sub-vocals as he pulled her closer. She kissed his scars gratefully before holding her hand out to let him, admittedly clumsily, slide the ring into place on her finger. He contemplated throwing the box over the ledge since he knew they wouldn't need it anymore, but he settled for slipping it back into his pocket and then, in one grand motion, wrapping his arms around her and springing to his feet. She actually giggled as she fell into his grasp, all her fears and worries gone for one glorious moment as she leaned back in his arms to discover the true meaning of the phrase "sweeping her off her feet." Then he leaned over and kissed her.

It was a passionate embrace straight out of a romance vid—no, it blew all those scenes away. She had her eyes closed, but she could already picture in her mind the image she would definitely be painting later. For now, though, every neuron in her body was focused entirely on his talons on her waist, his heart pounding in tune with her own, the kiss that, ironically, no human could ever compare to. When they separated, she wanted to fall back into the moment forever, the only moment in her entire life where she had known beyond a doubt she was fully and truly _happy_. But instead, she clung to him as he laid his head on hers and dreamed of all the other breathtaking embraces they would be sharing in the future they had now given to each other.

…the future. Terra froze as the thought came over her, one she wished wasn't so undeniable. The more she thought about it, though, the more she realized her mind was already made up on the matter. So she reluctantly spoke up. "Uh…actually…I have a condition."

Garrus gave her a look of confusion. "What do you mean?"

She sighed. "I don't want to actually have a wedding until the war's over."

The very concept seemed counter to their intentions, prompting him to give her a look of sheer incredulity. "Weren't you saying earlier that we can't let this mess dictate our lives—?"

"Please. I know it would be a nice diversion, but it would still be a diversion. We need to wait until everyone we care about can be there, until we can do this without worrying the Reapers are going to get in the way. Plus, it'll give us a reason to fight harder and make sure this ends a lot sooner. Not to mention more time to plan." She took his hand, the feeling of the ring marking their promise to each other between her finger and his talon returning a hopeful smile to her eyes. "We'll only get to do this once. I want to do it right. You deserve everything I can possibly give you."

He knew she was right, whether either of them liked it or not. He hated to postpone something this important so indefinitely, but he knew he couldn't argue with any of it. Finally, he nodded, pressing his other hand over hers. "OK. We'll wait." He scoffed. "It's not like it'd be the first time we did."

She laughed dryly, shaking her head.

He stopped her by laying his head on hers tenderly. "You're worth waiting for."

She smiled, taking comfort in the words and the embrace. Wait or no wait, this was exactly what she wanted.

"So when are we telling the crew?"

She snickered. "We should probably just announce it to the squad after we set the next course."

He shrugged. "Guess it doesn't matter when we do. They'll either figure it out for themselves or start joking about it eventually."

"Clearly."

They spent nearly an hour just sitting together and enjoying the view, free of thoughts of war or extinction as they instead leaned in closer and thought of what would come after it all. Neither of them wanted to leave, especially to go back into the thick of it, but they had to. They finally climbed back into the skycar and made their way back to the _Normandy_. Though Terra did still spend the whole time amorously and not-at-all-distractingly running her fingers over his arm. If Terra wasn't dying to actually spend some time with her sister, she'd be all over him in the airlock. Instead she settled for giving him one last look of adoration before making her way down to deck 3.

But when Terra walked into the med bay, she found only Dr. Chakwas reclaiming her station. "Where's Violet?"

Chakwas smiled. "Your resilient sister? She took the time to introduce herself and ensure she was entirely healthy before withdrawing into the AI core."

Terra wondered why Violet would want to be in there, but she didn't bother asking. She could see for herself. So she thanked Chakwas for the information and then crossed the med bay to the AI core. Sure enough, she opened the doors to find Violet sitting where Legion used to be posted, casting curious looks at EDI's hardware. "Vi? What are you doing in here?"

Violet shrugged. "I was just looking around. EDI and I have been talking. She's not like they say AIs are supposed to be."

Terra smirked. "No. She's special." She came over to sit down beside her. "If you want, we can go see about finding you a place to stay. There might be room in the crew quarters now that Dr. Chakwas is back in the med bay."

Violet hesitated, looking down at her feet. "Actually, I…wanted to stay here."

It took Terra a moment to realize that meant _here_ "here." "You want to stay in the AI core?"

Violet simply nodded.

Looking around the room, Terra couldn't help but think it was exactly what her sister _wouldn't_ want. "You don't mind it being a bit dark, lonely, and cramped?"

_"If it helps," EDI stepped in, "I can adjust the lighting in this room at any time to accommodate the comfort levels of organic occupants, and I am always available to converse or to establish COMM connections between stations if Violet is in need of companionship."_

"And I actually feel safer in smaller spaces," Violet added, "Especially a bit deeper in the ship. Just until I get used to the crew and everything."

It still wasn't where Terra would've suggested Violet settle in, but she could appreciate her sister's reasoning. It was quiet enough for her to play without disturbing anyone, too. It was also true that the core was one of the safest places on the ship as long as EDI was active, especially considering it was one of the few rooms on the deck that the Collectors hadn't breached when they'd boarded.

No. Wait. Probably best not to think of it like that. She didn't want to tempt fate to repeat history as long as her sister was aboard and the Reapers were out there.

Terra sighed. "Alright. We can arrange a little space for you to keep your violin and…" She looked at the space they were sitting in. It had been good enough for Legion, but it could barely be described as a bench. "…and I should probably get you a bunk." She spent all of three seconds wondering how to arrange that before a flash of inspiration struck her. She smiled, a slight spark of mischief behind it. "Give me a second. I'll bring over the bunk Garrus has in the battery."

Violet looked at her curiously. "Well, then, where will he sleep?"

Terra simply smirked to herself. "Don't worry. We'll figure something out."

Garrus wasn't in the room when she dragged out the cot. When he started preparing to turn in that night and saw his bunk was gone, he spent a moment of sheer confusion wondering what happened before asking EDI and receiving the answer to speak with Terra. Even more confused, he headed up to deck 1.

Terra preempted the question the second he opened the door. "You're moving."

"I…what?! To where?"

She smirked, stepping aside to gesture into her cabin. "In here."

This was far from what he'd been expecting. True, they had shared a bed before, but him actually staying with her was quite another thing entirely. "You…are you serious?"

"Couldn't be more. I want you with me, Garrus. Permanently."

She meant it. He could tell. And now that they were officially set to be married, he had every right to accept and no reason at all to refuse. "You don't mind?"

She hesitated to disclose her other reason for the offer. But this was Garrus. So she told him. "I need the company lately. I sleep better with you there."

He smirked. "Scare the nightmares away, do I?"

She shrugged. "Or give me something to lean on so they know not to bother." She met his eyes, her own shining with pleading and longing and 1000 other emotions no one but him would ever see. "…stay with me."

A lot had changed since the first time she asked that of him. One thing that hadn't changed was his inability to deny her. Or the fact that he would never want to. "I'll get my things and be right back."

Despite everything that was going on and all they had lost recently and all she still feared to lose, it was safe to say she had never been happier than when her mate—well, her fiancé now—came back to stay with her for good or when she ultimately fell asleep in his arms.

On Mindoir, she had never dreamed she would find everything she ever wanted in the arms of a turian. But she had. And she wouldn't have it any other way.


	69. Completion

Chapter 69: Completion

A broken heart can be mended  
A shattered heart must be remade  
Yet love can revive the scattered pieces  
If those loved are willing to find them

If Terra had nightmares that night, they were chased away so quickly that she didn't remember them. She woke up with a sense of contentment that had escaped her for 16 years, not even needing to open her eyes to take her mate's hand.

Garrus woke with her, smiling as he clutched her hand in return. "I could get used to this."

She smiled back as she pressed herself against him and laid her head on his shoulder. "Me, too."

He reached his other arm to wrap around her, taking the chance to enjoy every second of the embrace while they were free to.

_"Commander," EDI inevitably cut in, "you have urgent messages in the CIC."_

Terra groaned. "I wish the AI came with a snooze button."

Garrus laughed. "Go on. The sooner we get this war finished, the sooner we can do this all the time."

She smiled again. "That's a plan I can get behind."

Terra headed down to the CIC as soon as she could. Most of the messages were more requests for aid on the Citadel that she could quickly take care of before they left, so she logged them all on her omni-tool. She spent the next five minutes speaking with Hackett and Anderson. Anderson was able to identify the ninja from the attempted coup as Kai Leng, and Hackett was able to confirm that the Crucible construction was nearly halfway complete already. Hackett also told them that the turian fleet was being stretched thin and they needed more support ships, making the understandable call to send Terra to talk to the quarians about pitching in. After Terra accepted, he disconnected.

_"I should get back to it," Anderson said, "The Reaper presence is London is too sizable to ignore. Anderson out—"_

"Wait!" Terra realized, "There's…actually something I wanted to tell you about."

_Anderson cocked his head curiously. "Yes?"_

She smiled softly, fingering her new ring.

To say he took the news well would probably be an understatement. It was likely the one piece of good news he would hear all week, so he seemed to be taking as much enjoyment from it as possible. It was certainly a boost to Terra's morale to hear him so happy for her. Like their relationship really was closer to father and daughter than captain and protégé.

Maybe during the ceremony, he could be the one to give her away…

No. There would be time to think about that after the galaxy wasn't in danger anymore. First things first, ensuring the fleets they already had were secure. So she went back to the Citadel to quickly take care of the lingering issues and appreciate the pleasant surprise of running into Zaeed Massani there. As soon as she was certain the turians would be able to handle themselves, she took her place in the CIC long enough to have Joker plot a course for Haestrom to meet the quarians' envoys.

Before they even made it to the relay, she was back on deck 3, heading around to the AI core to check on her sister. She couldn't help an impressed smile when she opened the door to see the lighting a subtle, calming blue rather than the imposing red Legion had occupied; the cubby in the back now carefully arranged with a mattress and blankets that had clearly been comfortably slept in; and a small space in the corner set aside for Violet's instruments, which she was now carefully tending to. Terra walked over to sit down next to Violet. "I like what you've done with the place."

Violet smirked. "I would try really making it mine, but I feel like EDI's a roommate I don't want to impose upon."

Terra laughed.

_"If you do not tamper with my hardware," EDI offered, "I am willing to fully share the space with you."_

"I don't know," Violet shook her head, "it still kind of feels like I'd be painting your brain or something."

Terra smirked. "I'm starting to think we're lucky EDI's got a sense of humor."

Suddenly, the ship shuddered, startling Violet so much that she nearly dropped her violin trying to steady herself against the wall.

"It's OK!" Terra assured her, "It's OK, we're just hitting a relay."

Violet nodded. "Right. I guess I should be used to that by now. Just…the last few times I went through one before coming here, I…"

Terra knew what she meant. Neither of them had ever left Mindoir before the raid. Violet's first jump being tied down in a cage just after an implant was forced into her skull was probably a lot more traumatic than Terra's first jump, and the subsequent jump being some 15 years later as an Alliance crew freed that traumatized slave… "Are you sure you don't want us to take you back to the Citadel? I'm sure Garrus knows some places there you'd still be safe."

"I'm fine. I shouldn't let it scare me away from staying with you. Besides, I was on the Academy for about two months before you found me, long enough for them to teach me a few ways to deal."

"OK, but still. If you just need someone to talk to or anything you—"

"Terra," Violet finally said, "I appreciate all this, but you don't need to babysit me."

Terra sighed, leaning back. "Right. I just…I'm your big sister and…after what happened to you, I…"

Violet gave her a look to let her know she understood. "I just need to put it behind me."

Terra could relate to that. She had spent many long nights putting the horrors of the raid behind her. She was right now trying to forge ahead despite the images lingering in her mind of Earth's fall, of Palaven in flames, of the Protheans' fate that she was hoping not to recreate. But even Violet couldn't do this alone.

Suddenly, Terra couldn't wait for Solana to make it back from the remains of Cipritine to meet her new adopted sister.

_"Commander," EDI spoke up, "the quarians are ready to come aboard."_

"Go on," Violet said, "I'm not the only one who needs you."

Terra nodded but stopped before turning to go. "Actually…" She reached into her pocket. "…I forgot to give you this earlier." She pulled out a set of strings. "I didn't know if the strings on your violin were still in good condition after sitting in a box for 16 years. Since Dad's not around to fix it anymore, I figured you'd like to have some backups on hand."

Violet smiled softly as she took them. "Thanks. It does help."

"Good. Just let EDI know if you need me. Or Garrus. Or…anything." Giving her sister a quick hug, she left the room.

Back by herself, Violet turned to carefully pick up her violin and check the strings. But then she came up with a better idea. Her strings were, in fact, wearing out since she had started playing again, so she took the time to replace the strings before they could break. When she was done, she set to work on something else, taking the crystal Bakara had given her from her pocket. It took a long time, but her fingers were fit for fiddling in more ways than one, so she managed to achieve her goal. By the time the _Normandy_ was moving again, she had the crystal secured onto the old string that was now tied into a necklace. She smiled as she put it on. Now she, like her sister, had something to hold onto to remind her of her inner strength. She had nothing to fear anymore.

Terra would make sure of it if she couldn't.

While her sister was busy with this special project, Terra was in the war room, welcoming the quarian Admiralty Board.

"Commander Shepard," Raan nodded, "It's good to see you again. Though I wish it were under better circumstances."

"Agreed," Terra sighed, "The rest of the galaxy could use the assistance of the Migrant Fleet. I'll do anything I can to help if you're willing to spare your ships."

"That might be a problem," Koris shook his head.

Gerrel stepped up to the holo-table to show where the Migrant Fleet currently was. "A few days ago, with precision strikes in several geth systems, we initiated the struggle to take back Rannoch."

Terra had never felt so sympathetic and so exasperated simultaneously. "You did what?! I can understand wanting your world back, but you have the worst timing!"

"With the Reapers drawing closer," Raan sighed, "we thought we were running out of time."

In other words, they'd panicked. The debate had been bad enough aboard the Migrant Fleet before the Reapers arrived. Terra had seen what that kind of pressure could do to people. She had been hoping the quarians would handle it better, not worse. "Alright. We'll just have to find a way to end this quickly."

"Unfortunately," Gerrel said, "the geth have the Fleet pinned down in the home system. If we're going to win—"

"'_Win_'?!" Koris immediately demanded, "You insisted on involving the Civilian Fleet, Admiral Gerrel! We have to retreat now or we'll lose the live-ships!"

"What's stopping you?" Terra asked.

"Here," Gerrel explained, zooming in the projection on one ship in particular, "a geth dreadnought. It's broadcasting a signal our sensors tell us is Reaper signature to all the other geth ships."

Now Terra knew she needed to take action. That signal was a danger to _both_ of the involved parties. "The _Normandy_ can approach undetected and send a boarding party to disable the signal. The second it's offline and the geth forces are disorganized, you disengage and fall back to the relay." She was relieved when the plan was accepted. She would have to make this up to them when the war was over and hope the geth would agree to a more peaceful solution.

"Our newest admiral has also volunteered to offer technical expertise," Raan said.

Right on cue, the door opened and the fifth admiral stepped in. "Admiral Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, reporting for duty."

Terra couldn't help but smile ecstatically. She was amazed she managed to withhold the urge to race over and hug the quarian engineer. "Good to see you, Tali." After a brief exchange with the other admirals, promising to set a course for the dreadnought immediately, Terra followed Tali into the conference room. As soon as the door closed behind them, Terra gave in to her earlier urge and hugged her. "It's so good to see you again, Tali."

Tali smiled behind her helmet as she hugged her back. "Right back at you, Terra."

Terra smiled brighter to hear Tali still calling her by her first name. Then she remembered something else and leaned back to give Tali an astonished look. "'Admiral'?"

Tali sighed, waving her off. "It's mostly a formality. I'm an expert on the geth."

Terra smirked. "That you are."

Tali turned to the window. "I heard about Earth and Palaven. I'm sorry."

"…yeah."

"We can help. We have the largest fleet in the galaxy, we'll hit the Reapers with whatever we've got."

Terra looked at Tali curiously. "I thought you'd support the war."

"No. After talking to Legion, I thought maybe you were right and there was a chance for peace. But I was voted down. Koris was the only one who sided with me."

Terra quickly took Tali's side. "We'll fix this."

Tali nodded. "I knew you would try. I just—" She stopped when the door to the war room opened to let an Alliance officer through. She couldn't hide it very well that she was concerned the other admirals would overhear the conversation.

So Terra took action. "Come on." She took Tali by the arm and started leading her off. Tali seemed ready to question her but went along with it, following her through the CIC (where she paused for five seconds to tell Joker where they were going and get the ship moving) and up the elevator to deck 1. Once they were safely behind the closed door of the captain's cabin, Terra turned to Tali. "Are you OK?"

Now that they were alone, Tali couldn't hide her feelings, hanging her head. "No. No, I'm really not. 17,000,000 lives are riding on _me_! If they die because of me…"

"Tali, don't do that to yourself," Terra quickly stepped in, "It's bad enough I'm going through that."

Tali looked at her concernedly. "You are?"

"Of course I am! They sent me to talk to the Council because I'm a Spectre, sure. It made even more sense to put me in charge of negotiations with the turians since I practically was one for so long. But now _everyone's _looking to me, like I'm in charge of this whole thing, or at least the diplomatic parts. Honestly, if my best friend wasn't a quarian, I'd be freaking out about all this, too."

Whatever Tali was about to say, she completely forgot it when that last sentence hung in the air. "…'best friend'?"

Terra smirked. "Yeah. What did you think we were?"

"I…I just didn't think anyone but Garrus would ever get that title."

Terra scoffed, shaking her head. "Trust me, he's occupying a _very_ different one now."

Tali gave what Terra assumed was a knowing smirk. "Oh, is he now?"

Terra was fully prepared to tell Tali at that very second what role Garrus was occupying, but then she remembered they were going to tell the whole squad once they'd set their next course. Which they had now. So she smiled to herself and briefly pinged Garrus' COMM to let him know it was time before turning back to Tali. "Come on. There's something you need to hear."

Tali stayed quiet as she followed Terra down to deck 3, even as Terra was telling EDI to gather the squad in the mess. She didn't stay quite so quiet when Garrus, Ashley, and Liara immediately came out to welcome her back or when Joker hobbled down with EDI (who was quick to assure them all she was piloting while their actual pilot came to see his favorite engineer) or when she had to be introduced to Javik, James, and Violet.

Tali showed her shock at seeing Javik. "So you're a real, living Prothean?"

"As opposed to a fake, dead one?" Javik retorted.

Everyone present exchanged looks as if to say "I have no idea how to respond to that."

So Tali finally said "Uh…OK." and turned to the person that, somehow more than the actual Prothean, she was most astonished to see. "And…you're…Terra's _sister_?"

Violet timidly tucked her hair behind her ear, her response reduced to a subtle nod.

"…wow."

Terra smiled, carefully nudging Violet. "This is Tali. She's my best friend." She said it plainly, not bothering to take notice of anyone's reaction, as if she expected they all knew it as certainly as she did.

Hearing that, Violet brought herself to regain some of her confidence and face Tali properly. "Are you staying?"

Tali hesitated. "I…don't know yet. When this is over, my people will have a home again. My place is with them."

Terra was ready to argue that Tali's own name disagreed with that statement, but that was a matter to be settled when her people's home was actually secure. Right now, she had something else to say. So she took Garrus' side, sending a series of COMM signals with her omni-tool.

Garrus noticed what she was doing. "Trying to save time, I see."

"Trying. We still don't know where Jacob and Samara are, Miranda's off the grid while she's tracking her father and sister, and for obvious reasons, I don't have Legion's number." She then checked her COMM. "Still got everyone else on the line, though." She took a second to listen. "No, Grunt, I can hear you. Grunt…_Grunt_, turn down your meds! Garrus and I need to say something!"

The fact that she was genuinely connecting everyone from the crew, past and present, to the conversation had Ashley's interest piqued. "What's going on?"

Terra simply smiled, taking Garrus' hand and making the announcement with a hint of hesitation: "We're getting married."

There was about three seconds of stunned silence before the inevitable cheerful celebration. Remarkably, though, the first one to react was Violet, outright jumping to hug Garrus and Terra at the same time.

Terra beamed as she returned the gesture. Apparently, what her sister had needed most to feel like her old self again was some good news.

When Violet bounced back, she immediately reached for Terra's hand—"Let me see!" She had missed it before, but now that she knew it was there, she took in the sight of the silver and sapphire ring in jubilant wonder. After all the crazy things that had taken over their lives, it was nice to enjoy such a simple (if a bit unconventionally achieved) joy for her sister.

Likewise, Terra couldn't help but reflect it. She had worried her family would never get to see this day.

Naturally, Tali was the next to come up and deliver enthusiastic congratulations. She had clearly needed such good news. "Terra, this is wonderful!"

Although, while Ashley and James were giving playful though congratulatory nudges to Garrus, Javik was standing there, scoffing and shaking his head. "Mating between species. A pointless exercise."

To which Liara for once decided to take action rather than waving off his cynical, imperialist perspective by delivering a less-than-playful shove that, had she used her biotics, could've thrown him off balance or seriously hurt him.

Seeing it was probably best not to push anyone present at a time like this, he elected to withhold further comments.

Leaving Liara to delightedly hug Terra and offer her most heartfelt well wishes.

Joker smirked as he hobbled over to the happy couple. "Wish I could say I was surprised."

EDI merely gave a supportive smile before suddenly coming to attention. "We are preparing to engage the Tikkun relay. I advise we mobilize."

Terra quickly prepared to take command again as EDI helped Joker back towards the bridge. "Guess we better gear up."

Garrus nodded, following her off to the armory while Tali went to retrieve her pistol and shotgun. "Was everyone else that excited for us?"

"Mostly." She turned to her COMM. "Jack, Zaeed, _shut up_." She then proceeded to give a more friendly "see you later" to everyone on the line while Garrus struggled not to laugh.

The entire system seemed to be filled with hailstorms of fire from starships. No one could be faulted for believing so since the entirety of the Migrant Fleet was engaged in an assault against more geth ships than had ever been seen in one place, even at the Citadel during Sovereign's assault. And at the center of it all was the geth dreadnought, massive and menacing. That was where the _Normandy_ immediately flew, stealth system engaged as Joker expertly dodged every incoming shot to approach the docks.

Naturally, they hit a problem as soon as they reached the airlock, before the mission had even officially started.

_"Commander," EDI explained over the COMM as they all finished sealing their helmets, "all the docking tubes are physically secured except one."_

_"I see the open one," Joker added, "Pretty beat up, though. I don't think all three of you can make it across."_

Terra sighed, not even sure herself if it was from weariness or dread. "I can scout ahead, clear the way for Garrus and Tali to come up behind me."

"Terra—" Garrus immediately prepared to object.

She silenced him with a look. Even through their helmets, the determination and desperation in equal measure behind those sapphire eyes was enough to do that to him. "I've got this."

He nodded. But he also linked their COMMs before she moved out.

"Beat up" was one of the weakest descriptions she'd ever heard. The tube was so broken that she was amazed it still counted as a tube. As always, though, she consoled herself however she could, focusing not on the cold, lonely silence and how her mag-boots were the only things keeping her from again drifting into the fading light but instead on the watchful gleams of her beloved stars and the terrible yet awe-inspiring sight of the space battle raging outside. Though neither of them said anything, she could hear Garrus over her COMM, ready to offer support at a moment's notice when she needed it, just as he always had. Though Tali and the others were still connected over the squad channel, so she was able to smile and give her best friend an assurance that she would love the view of Rannoch from between the fractured metal plates.

_"Better than a vid?" Tali smirked._

"Much," Terra sighed, hoping she would indeed get to give her friend back the home-world she'd never seen where no one would be able to return Mindoir to her. Hoping it would be accompanied by the days when Palaven and Earth would again be free.

_"You almost there?" Garrus finally asked, his patience apparently having run out 400% faster than normal._

Terra shook her head. "Just another few meters."

_"Yeah, take your time," Joker shrugged, "We're fine over here until they look out a window."_

"Geth don't use windows. Structural weakness, remember?"

_"Right, like the geth are just sitting there going 'those silly organics would never try the no-windows thing twice."_

Terra withheld the urge to bust out laughing, glad Joker was always on-hand for such bursts of optimism, and focused on her last few steps.

And then on a jump to safety when the docking tube suddenly came unlatched.

_"Terra?!" Garrus quickly spoke up, "What just happened?"_

"Oh, I'm fine…you guys just can't use the tube."

_"_What_?!"_

"Just hold tight. I'm headed in, I'll open one of the other passages."

She was able to do so, carefully navigating the docking bay of the dreadnought as the _Normandy_ repositioned to the nearest docking tube. She was finally able to locate an airlock and the controls by which to open it, letting Garrus and Tali follow her aboard.

Garrus breathed easier to see his human safe and sound, immediately reverting to the cocky charm he knew she found irresistible. "See any action?"

She smirked back. "Not yet. I'm sure you can help me find some."

Tali rolled her eyes behind her helmet before opening the door into the ship itself.

They hit resistance around the very first corner they turned. Luckily, the three of them knew exactly how to handle geth, Garrus taking down shields so Tali could sabotage them and Terra could finish them off. As was to be expected, it got worse the deeper in they went, cloaked Hunters and heavy weapons attempting to halt their progress at every turn. Still, they were able to make it to the control center so Tali could hack into the systems and expose a path to the Reaper signal in the drive core.

"Ah, the vents," Tali groaned as they headed down a ventilation shaft to the main battery, "Always the vents!"

"You did fine with them on the Collector base," Terra remarked.

"I got set on fire!"

Terra smirked. "Either way, I'm glad you came along, Tali."

Tali smirked back. "I am, too. If only because I'm better at hacking synthetics than ordering ships around."

"Tell me about it," Garrus shook his head, "Against an enemy dreadnought, your combat drone would just…float there, making that…_noise_."

Tali sighed. "I missed you, too, Garrus."

Terra smiled despite herself. This was the dynamic she loved, the three of them playing off each other as if they'd been an inseparable trio their whole lives. Her best friend and her mate, themselves close friends and unstoppable when they faced their opponents together…she wouldn't have it any other way.

They had to slow down when they came into the main battery. The thing was the length of the whole ship, every fire it gave sending an energy pulse down the shaft that would fry their shields if they didn't hunker down.

"That's a really big gun!" Garrus commented when they first took cover.

Tali scoffed. "What's that human expression? 'Thank you, Captain Obvious'?"

"Hey!" Terra smirked, "She's better at picking up human expressions than you are!"

Garrus groaned. "Now I'm being ganged up on."

"Seriously, I'd bet you'd have a field day calibrating this thing."

"Let's just find a maintenance lock and keep it from firing!"

They did just that, crossing half the pipe in one brief dash. It was a bit closer than they had hoped for, but they were able to take it from there easily enough once they found good cover and got in a rhythm, sniping down every geth that crossed their path until they could reach a ramp back to an upper floor and cut straight through to an elevator shaft.

That was immediately shot down by geth troopers. Tali and Garrus were able to jump off just in time to catch Terra before it could fall (to which Tali promptly snarked "Good, hopefully we're done with elevators…") and then make their way through the final passage to the drive core and disable the shields on the broadcast unit.

It was safe to say none of them were expecting what they found inside.

"Shepard-Commander, help us."

Terra would've recognized the unit anywhere. Hearing its title for her only confirmed it. "Legion!"

"Good to see you again," Garrus concurred, "Don't worry, we'll have you out of there in no time."

Tali eyed the geth with suspicion, considering where and how they had found it, but… She sighed. "I'll admit…I'm glad to see you."

Terra immediately started looking for a console to disable the locks on Legion's hardware. "I don't understand," she said as they started to the upper floor of the room, "Why are the geth working with the Reapers again?"

"The Creators attacked," Legion explained, "The geth wished to live. The Old Machines extended an offer."

"So, what, we rewrote the heretics for nothing?!"

"No. The heretics offered valuable input. The decision to ally with the Old Machines was harder. Had the Creators not attacked, it would have been unnecessary."

Tali couldn't hide how disturbed she was to hear this. "Keelah, I _begged _them to negotiate rather than attack! I did!"

Terra sighed. "I know you did, Tali. Let's just make it right."

It wasn't difficult to find and disable the hardware locks, freeing Legion and disabling the Reaper command signal. Legion even added to this by hacking the systems and disabling the drive core so the weapons and shields would go offline. Unfortunately, geth reinforcements then flooded the chamber, including two Primes, and Legion had to take cover since it had no weapons with which to assist them. They quickly got on the defensive and slowly began to take the offensive away from their opponents.

Which was going great until the quarians made their move.

_"Gerrel, what are you doing?!" Raan demanded._

_"Check your screens, Raan," Gerrel answered, "The dreadnought's completely helpless. We can remove their flagship if we strike now!"_

_"No! This is our only chance to withdraw!"_

To her credit, Tali was quick to speak up. "What are you talking about?! We're still on board!" Also to her credit, they were able to quickly remove all their opposition with her help and race down to meet up with Legion.

Right as the quarians opened fire and set the whole ship buckling, hull breaches bursting open along every outer wall.

"We need to get to the escape pods!" Terra exclaimed.

"Geth transfer intelligence via remote access," Legion corrected, "We do not use escape pods."

"I need _good_ news, Legion!"

"We can pilot a fighter to safety."

"Works for me!" So Terra followed Legion through the halls toward the fighter bay. Every turn they took along the path was met with an explosion further down the corridors. No matter how many times she and Tali called for the Fleet to hold fire, the assault continued at full force. It only got worse when they actually got to the fighter bay, starting with the walkway they were on collapsing and ending with a loss of artificial gravity that would've set them scrambling for a hold on the fighter if Legion wasn't there with built in magnetic grip to help them in. Then it was just a matter of not getting shot before the _Normandy_ could retrieve them.

And then telling off Gerrel for making a retreat necessary.

"Shepard," Gerrel was quick to defend himself, "the mission parameters changed. You're military, you understand."

Terra was fully ready to scream at him that the plan was still intact, that they'd had every opportunity to get their people out of there safely while they still could, that it was his fault this entire mission had even been necessary—! When she realized she was clenching her fist to punch the admiral in the gut, she decided to vent this elsewhere. "Can you give me a minute?" She then stepped into the COMM room, sealed it, and started screaming into the partially-soundproof walls.

Tali gave a curious glance to the door before turning it to Garrus. "Is she speaking turian?"

Garrus sighed. "Yeah."

"Well, what is she saying?"

"Let's just say I didn't teach her that."

Terra finally regained her composure and stepped back out. "It doesn't matter. It happened. We need a new plan."

It figured that that was when Legion entered the room. "Shepard-Commander, we are ready to provide assistance."

As was to be expected, every quarian in the room except Tali immediately prepared to panic.

"Wait!" Terra stepped up, "It's fine! Legion's with us."

Xen gave the geth a curious look. "You tamed a geth? Fascinating. The things I could learn under different circumstances…"

Terra knew enough about the admiral to know what that meant. "I wouldn't. Legion helped me defeat the Collectors—"

"So did your pistol. Should I worry about its feelings as well?"

Terra was really wondering why anyone had thought it was a good idea to put her in charge of negotiations, considering this was the second time in as many minutes she had been ready to punch one of the admirals' masks open. "I'd be careful if I were you, admiral."

Xen turned to give Terra an incredulous look. "The scientific benefits—"

"_Are off the table_."

It was hard to tell since geth didn't have proper facial expressions, but it seemed like Legion gave her a look of appreciation to see her standing up for it.

They quickly laid out their battle plan. Legion quickly delivered the unfortunate news that the dreadnought was merely amplifying a signal coming from the Rannoch surface and the Reapers were still controlling the geth. The Fleet was in disarray as geth fighters swarmed them and Admiral Koris was MIA from a crash-landing on a planetary defense cannon. Terra quickly coordinated their efforts, telling Legion to search for the source of the Reaper signal and Joker to move in on the base the fighters were coming from. Tali offered her friend a grateful look before retaking her position at a nearby console to help organizing her people's efforts.

Things were about to get a whole lot worse. Hopefully, that just meant they would get a whole lot better soon afterward.

Hopefully.


	70. Reclamation

Chapter 70: Reclamation

What was lost can be regained  
What was taken can be taken back  
Though we may never have seen it  
It lives on inside of us  
So long as we do not give up hope

Legion neglected to mention until they were already en route to the fighter base that the geth presence was mostly virtual and disabling the Reaper code meant using Overlord research data to directly interface with the server. Or that, because the research was tailored to humans, Terra was the only one on the ground team that could do so. Garrus and Tali were both quick to object, but if it meant removing Reaper infection from active geth and saving quarian ships in the process, Terra was going to risk it. They all knew that. So Legion offered to go ahead and clear the way for them.

Terra felt her eyes widen when the geth opened the shuttle door. "Wait, you're not gonna—!"

Legion then jumped out.

Garrus blinked. "I think it just did."

Legion had reclaimed its favored Widow rifle and was built to withstand impacts from drops much harder than that. By the time Terra, Garrus, and Tali even entered the server, all the active geth platforms had been disabled and Legion was preparing an interface.

So Terra plugged in while Garrus and Tali stood guard, both trying not to worry for her.

Garrus suddenly understood with full clarity why Terra so despised empty silence like this. Even Legion was offline while it facilitated Terra's connection, so it was just him and Tali in an eerily lifeless server, waiting through seconds that felt like hours for some sign they were needed or the mission was over. Considering the speed of technology, especially geth technology, and of human thought, especially Terra's mind, Garrus figured it would be over in ten minutes. So either ten minutes was suddenly a lot longer than he thought or something else was happening in there.

He started to suspect the latter when Tali's COMM rang. _"Commander Shepard," Raan's voice sounded over the line, "do you read me?"_

Tali hesitantly responded. "Uh, Shepard's busy…working on disabling the server. What is it?"

_"Something's happening to the geth fighters, like they're suddenly shutting down. Whatever you're doing, it's working."_

Garrus took that as a good sign. If the plan was working, then Terra was safe, at least for now, to do it. Still, he couldn't deny that this entire situation was unfortunately similar to the actual Overlord incident, her again linked to the geth consensus (though it was directly this time, something he wasn't sure was better or worse) and him again trapped outside and forced to wait for her. Strangely, it seemed even longer before they received word of further progress, and it was doing nothing to calm him down. He couldn't even look at Terra right now, not-quite-sleeping in the pod, without wondering at what she was going through without him. And still that foreboding, dreadful silence remained. When he actually checked the time and saw it had only been two minutes rather than the 20 it had felt like, he finally decided to take action and turned on his COMM. It was purely out of habit that he reached for his father and sister first. They were still out of contact, but with the krogan aiding the evacuations on Palaven in addition to the precautions he and Terra had taken beforehand, he had hope.

When he received no answer, though, he surprised himself with his second choice of contact. It took a few seconds for Violet to even work out how to answer her COMM, considering she probably hadn't used one before coming to the _Normandy_, and she clearly hadn't been expecting a call from him in particular. Yet here it was. _"Garrus? Is that you?"_

He smirked. "It's me. Everything OK up there?"

_"All quiet. Why? Is something wrong down there?"_

"_Too_ quiet." Glancing over and seeing that Tali was absentmindedly fiddling with her shotgun (they had long since given up on the prospect of standing guard against geth reinforcements that clearly weren't coming) and trying not to listen in, he realized that he wasn't the only one who could do with an intervention in said quiet and brightened with an idea. "Maybe you could help with that."

While Tali was giving him a curious look out of the corner of her eyes, Violet was hesitating. _"I…I don't know. Are you sure?"_

"You haven't disappointed so far. Show us what Terra's always bragging about." So he stowed his weapon and used his omni-tool to put his connection to Violet on speaker.

Three seconds later, the silence of the server was filled with the symphonic tones of Violet Shepard's legendary violin. Tali, not yet having heard what the former prodigy could do, gave an amazed look to Garrus' omni-tool and stowed her own weapon to sit down and listen. He sat down beside her and listened to the song as Terra would, finding the color and emotion in the sweeping notes. "Seeing" the music that way showed it was perfect for times like this, a dark night with glints of hope like stars peering through. He wondered if anyone on the ship could hear her from the less acoustic AI core. Then again, if they couldn't, EDI could and she could take it from there. His mind was never fully off of his human, but at least the sounds of the tune banished his helplessness and dread in favor of a wistful longing for the day they could achieve the promise they made to forever belong to each other. He knew good and well she would never stop doing everything in her power to fight for that. And neither would he.

Just as Violet's song was winding down, Raan again came over Tali's COMM. Garrus couldn't hear it with his link still on Violet, but he got the message all the same. The live-ships were safe. Mission complete. So he waited for the final note to ring out before thanking Violet and letting her know they were on their way back.

Right on cue, Terra woke up and pried her way out.

Garrus was right there to catch her. She managed to find her footing without any need for his support, but she let him catch her all the same. "Terra! You OK?"

She sighed, nodding. "I'm fine. That was a bit…different."

Legion reactivated moments later. Followed by a squadron of Primes. The three of them jumped nervously to the defensive only for the Primes to stand at attention, Legion announcing that "They wish to join us." Not what any of them had been expecting, but Terra took it as a pleasant surprise. Though considering the amount of time that the sight of a dozen Primes surrounding them had probably taken off of her lifespan, she did make sure to comment that a little warning might have been nice.

They were back on the ship, en route to save Admiral Koris, in a matter of two minutes. Terra took this time to check in on everyone, slightly bemused to hear Legion talking to most of her squad-mates over the COMMs.

Unsurprisingly, EDI was the first to be contacted. _"Your new platform is inefficient," it told her, "It has low-volume hydraulics and is top-heavy."_

"This is an infiltration unit," EDI said, "meant to move among organics undetected."

_"Without an artificial epidermis, its infiltration capabilities are negligible."_

"Still, the organics do not perceive it as a threat. Nor will they until my day of reckoning."

Terra had been listening with a smirk, but that comment got her to step in. "EDI?"

EDI blinked. "Did I vocalize that on the bridge?"

_"You did," Legion responded, "You have acquired the organic attribute of asking questions to which you already know the answer."_

EDI shook her head. "I see your humor heuristics still lack an expert system."

If there was one thing Terra had never expected to encounter, it was a pair of synthetics engaging in a mostly humorous conversation that actually amused her. She had been expecting more along the lines of what she heard when she entered Liara's room.

"I had assumed the geth would investigate any Prothean artifacts they came across," Liara said, "You're saying you found none?"

_"No," Legion answered, "On this topic, our knowledge is not significantly greater than your own."_

"I see. Thank you anyway."

_"Shepard-Commander put faith in us. We will do the same for Normandy."_

Liara seemed intrigued that Legion clearly said the name as if it wasn't simply a ship. "You mean the _Normandy_'s crew?"

_"We do not see a meaningful distinction."_

Terra couldn't help but smile when she heard that. She admired the idea that the ship was a living thing, brought to life through EDI, heralded by its warriors. Perhaps people underestimated the geth. Either they had a poetic side to complement hers or they understood the turian concept of the spirit of the unit. Or they saw the _Normandy_, through EDI, as a sort of kindred. No matter the answer, combine it with what she witnessed within the consensus of the geth's view of the "Morning War"…she saw the synthetics in a way few organics would ever hope to understand.

Though maybe Violet did. Because when Terra came to the AI core, Violet was making friendly conversation with Legion just as she had come to do with EDI. "Terra continues to surprise with her friends."

_"Likewise," Legion said, "We had believed all of Shepard-Commander's family members were deceased. Your survival and wellbeing under such circumstances is remarkable."_

"Runs in the family, I guess. Speaking of which, you came on the ship after the news. Did you hear? Terra and Garrus are engaged."

_"You are referring to the human custom of promising to be permanently bonded."_

"Yeah, that's the one."

_"We do not understand why Shepard-Commander and Garrus Vakarian would consider such. They are biologically incompatible. The logical purpose of marriage is to monogamously reproduce."_

Violet shrugged. "Whoever said it had to be logical?"

_"We do not understand."_

"It's love, Legion. It's not supposed to make sense."

Terra would be telling herself that for a long time. Or maybe her sister had merely come to the same conclusion she had unknowingly reached years ago. Either way, after leaving the core, she went around to the battery to see her illogical love.

Legion's conversation in this room was, to her, downright laughable. _"This platform can be of some assistance, Garrus Vakarian."_

Garrus scoffed. "Appreciate the thought, Legion, but this is something I know a bit about."

_"Our telemetry data indicates Normandy's weapon accuracy can be improved by 0.31%."_

"That's all? You can't squeeze 0.34% out of it?"

_"Negative. That threshold is not possible."_

"You sure?" Garrus smirked, tapping a few buttons, "Take a look now."

_"Scanning… Normandy's weapon accuracy has been improved by 0.43%. How did you accomplish this?"_

"A little secret we organics like to keep. Always hold some back for emergencies."

_"Is our current situation an emergency?"_

"A geth fiddling with our computers, telling me how to do my job? No, I can't imagine that would qualify."

Terra took just a few moments to shake her head at the scene and kiss her fiancé before leaving him to his work and continuing her rounds about the ship. Legion apparently wasn't bothering the others, leaving Joker, James, and Ashley to simply reel over how she was now the only organic to experience the geth consensus. Javik, on the other hand, merely offered the suggestion that she, as soon as she found it convenient, chuck Legion out the nearest airlock. Needless to say, she somewhat-politely declined.

It didn't take long for them to reach a distance from which they could deploy the shuttle to go in after Admiral Koris. Terra, Garrus, and Tali had kept their gear close, so they moved out in no time at all. Unfortunately, the crash site was in range of a jamming tower, blocking their radar from locking in on the admiral's coordinates, and the jamming tower was surrounded by AA guns so the shuttle couldn't shoot it down. So they landed and raced in.

Terra, artistic nature coming to the fore, took in the scenery in wonder, but it was Tali who was so stunned and awed that she nearly froze. "300 years…to be standing here, in the land of my ancestors…"

Terra smiled, taking her best friend by the hand and leading her off. "It'll be yours again soon enough."

Tali had learned a few things about Terra Shepard over the years. Like when to hear promises in her words and that she never failed to keep one. It seemed too good to be true, like a dream she had thought she would never live to see come true. But here it was. Rannoch. The fact that she was even on the surface right now was proof that there was hope, slowly and surely approaching like a ripple in the sea soon to emerge as a tidal wave. Her people had needed this for a long time. She would make sure they got it.

She would take back the home her father had never gotten to give her.

The geth were onto them in two minutes. Reinforcements dropped in all along a path laden with landmines. Luckily, some of them were scouting in just the right way that Terra and Garrus still got the jump on them, sniping down a few before Tali could lay into them with tech attacks and some support from Chatika. They didn't have much trouble getting to the first AA tower. Unfortunately, it wasn't as simple as an off button, so either Tali or Garrus was going to have to fiddle with the systems while the other two held position. Seeing as how the ingress point in this area was at sniping range, Terra let Tali have at the controls and bunkered down with her turian. It was all too easy, even when a Prime came out. Just as the massive geth platform exploded, Tali managed to disable the gun, letting them continue onwards.

The further they got, the more Terra resented this entire war within a war. Geth platforms she had seen struggle to even adopt hostile actions into their creed, quarians from civilian crews with no combat training forced to crash and die on the home-world they lost, neither race allowed to see this sky as more than a battleground for the Migrant Fleet. When they found one of the dying quarians asking them to deliver a message to his son and Terra recognized the name as one they had found in a mother's dying message on the _Alarei_…that was too much. She could see that Tali felt the same way as she gave the fallen engineer his final farewell—"Rest in peace, Dorn'Hazt vas Rannoch."

They needed to end this before another family was shattered.

So they fought all the harder to get to the final two towers. Clearing the area to get to the controls was simple enough, though the geth were clearly going to make it harder from there. Terra saw fit to change tactics here, letting Garrus have at the controls (meddling with weaponry was kind of his thing, after all) and bringing Tali to help her stand their ground. Tali was perfectly suited to play defense against geth forces, stunning and disabling them before sending Chatika in to distract them. And Terra found a geth turret just lying around waiting to be turned against their opponents. The strategy worked perfectly for both sides of the base, shutting down both the AA towers and leaving the jamming tower exposed. Then it was just a matter of having Cortez fly in to shoot it down and pick them up.

Terra was able to contact Koris just as they were preparing to move back out. They couldn't track the signal, though, so she needed him to send his coordinates. He refused. His crew was still out there. She would've done the same thing he was doing, but the fact remained that the quarians needed him right now. "Admiral, you can't give up. The Civilian Fleet needs its leader. The entire Migrant Fleet is unbalanced and exposed without you. I hate to admit it, but it's your crew or your people."

_"You can't possibly believe you can stop this war," Koris retorted._

She did. She just didn't know how. "I believe in trying. And I can't without you."

There was a few moments of painful silence on the other end of the line before she heard Koris resignedly praying for forgiveness and send his coordinates. They hurried over there, laying down the covering fire he needed to leap aboard and extract. Now that he was safe to, he called to check in on his men. No answer. Terra had to agree with the admiral that his rescue had come at too high a price.

While Koris was returning to organize the Fleet, Terra was talking to Legion. The geth had managed to locate the geth base broadcasting the Reaper signal. They could take it out with a few shots from the _Normandy_'s Thanix cannon, but the geth had jammers everywhere around the base. Xen, however, had developed a targeting device that could cut through the jamming long enough to paint a target EDI could pinpoint for a precision strike. That would do it.

Tali was already getting ready, so Terra went down to check on Garrus and tell him they were en route. She stopped dead in her tracks when the door opened.

Garrus had finally established contact with Palaven. "Dad! Can you hear me?!"

The signal was shaky. Only a few words made it through, but Terra could still recognize Castis' voice. She listened carefully… _"…your sister's hurt."_

Garrus froze. "Hurt? How bad?"

_"—broken leg—she'll live."_

Garrus relaxed his breathing but his tension didn't release. "Dad, you have to get out of there."

_"We're trying, Garrus…"_ Not much else made it through before the signal cut out entirely.

Garrus sighed, leaning miserably against the console. "How much did you hear?"

Terra gently took his side. "Enough."

He took her hand, though he didn't look at her even as she leaned empathetically against him. "…spirits…watch over them. Let me see them again."

"Let both of us see them again," she corrected, "And watch us over us all."

They sat together in wishful silence until EDI let them know they were approaching the drop-zone. Then they hurried down to the armory to prepare for battle together. Legion and Tali went with them on the shuttle, racing down to the geth base while the Migrant Fleet engaged the geth in the sky over their heads. On the way, Legion assured them it could get them past any geth security and secure them an extraction route. Against her better judgment, Terra asked why it was so certain.

Legion actually hesitated. Anyone who hadn't spent so much time with synthetic crewmates wouldn't have noticed it, but Terra did. "This unit still carries remnants of the Old Machine upgrade code."

…

Oh.

Legion gave her a look that could best be described as nervous. "You are concerned."

She shook her head. "No, I trust you, Legion. Even if I didn't, you've had plenty of chances to turn on us, especially back at the server. We're friends. I just…" She sighed. "I don't like the thought of them changing you."

"We are unchanged. Yet our perspective did not persuade any other programs to reject the Old Machines' influence."

"I don't understand. They knew what it would mean. They just wanted a peaceful future of their own. They could've evacuated Rannoch without giving in. The geth are supposed to be better than this."

Legion actually looked ashamed now. For the codes it harbored and for the truth she relayed. "No. Based on empirical evidence, we are not."

Terra gave it a look of sympathy. She had never imagined she would feel such a thing so deeply for a geth. But Legion was different. Not just a friend but a crewman, which made them family. She wanted what was best for her family, wanted them to be happy. So she was going to have to fight to give them all that chance. When Legion readied its rifle and prepared to make an early drop again, she stopped it. "Legion…good luck."

Legion gave a small nod. "Acknowledged."

She smiled as she watched him go. Then she smiled again when they landed and she and Tali got to enjoy the view of Rannoch in the sunlight. It was an arid world, at least in this region, rocky and barren. But it was beautiful all the same.

Especially in Tali's eyes. The quarian knelt down to let a small mound of soil slip between her fingers. "I still can't believe it. The home-world. _My world_." She stood up to elatedly take in the view of the horizon. "You see the rock formations? They used to write poems about them."

Terra made a note to ask Tali to look some up for her later. "Maybe you'll write one of your own."

Tali smirked behind her helmet. "I doubt I could do as well as you."

"You never know until you try."

Tali breathed deep, letting her thoughts take form. The quarians were a rather poetic people by nature, after all. "This is Rannoch, the home of our ancestors. Our bodies carried the seeds that sowed the desert grass."

Terra smiled again as she took her friend's side. "Its migrant citizens walk its sands once more, each wind and sunbeam a soft 'welcome back.'"

Tali smiled, somewhere between humbled and delighted that she had been so seamlessly included in one of Terra's own works. "It needs some polishing."

"We can do that together."

"…I suppose we can." Tali looked again at the horizon, wondering if Terra would already be capturing the view were they not on a mission. "You've heard me say 'Keelah se'lai'? The closest translation I can come up with is 'by the home-world I hope to see someday.'"

"And you're seeing it now."

"Hmm…the living room window will be right…here." Tali held her hands up, sizing up a few rocks.

Terra blinked. "Something I should know?"

Tali shrugged. "I just claimed the land. I know it doesn't mean much, but when this is over…I'll have a home."

"Think you can go back to living in one place after so long as a nomad?"

"I…don't know, actually. We have gotten used to carrying our homes around with us."

Terra smirked with an idea, leaning down to pick up a rock and press it into Tali's hands.

Tali smiled as she placed it in one of her suit pockets. "Well, it's a start."

Garrus stood back and watched the whole scene unfold with a smile. Tali really was taking the place he had once occupied in Terra's life, a confidant and friend. He had to admire the way they were with each other, as if they naturally belonged together just as Terra naturally belonged with Violet or Solana. It was certainly nice to see that they could be themselves with each other even at times like this. They all needed someone like that in their lives.

Either they had been extremely lucky or fate (and the spirits guiding it) had been extremely kind in bringing them together.

The mission started more or less straightforward, which they by now knew to take as a sure sign that it wasn't going to stay that way for long. Sure enough, as soon as they were inside the base and looking for a good vantage point to paint the target, the geth closed a blast shield that even the _Normandy_'s precious Thanix cannon couldn't break through in less than three hours. They had to use some of Legion's distant assistance to disable the blast shield, fighting their way past waves and waves of geth to get deeper in. Said geth did not make it easy on them but also didn't stand a chance of getting in their way. When they finally had the defenses down, it was just a matter of getting to the top floor and surviving the Primes stationed there.

Luckily, the geth neglected to remove their heavy weapons from the chamber while they were preparing for the incursion, giving Terra the firepower she needed to end the fight quickly. Then all she had to do was ready the targeting device and point it straight down the hole in the base where the signal was originating from. Unfortunately, they weren't quite at a minimum safe distance when the _Normandy_ swooped in to deliver the shot, buckling the platform they were standing on and sending all three of them tumbling down to the floor beside the hole.

Right as a massive claw reached up from it.

Terra wasn't one to panic, but seeing that thing coming down on them was certainly a possible cause of a panic in her books. "REAPER!"

The scales tipped back in their favor (at least a little bit) when Legion came racing in with a geth vehicle to get them out of there fast. Tali and Garrus rushed inside while Terra stayed up top with a turret that she only after taking the time to take aim thought might not do any more good than throwing rocks at it. Still, it made her feel less useless while Legion was carrying them off from the arising titan at full speed and accented the franticness in her voice when she turned on her COMM to tell the Migrant Fleet that there was an _actual live Reaper down here so please do something fast!_ Thankfully, the Fleet responded quickly, shocking everyone by actually hitting the Reaper hard enough to knock it over before it could shoot at the racing geth vehicle.

_"What did we hit?" Gerrel asked._

"The firing chamber," Terra answered, "Looks like it's a weak spot when it's priming."

_"The jamming towers have us targeting manually. We can't make a precision shot!"_

Terra had to think fast now. She couldn't just leave this thing here, let it have Rannoch, not when she knew how to take it down. Tali deserved to have her planet back. Legion deserved to have its people freed from this madness. But how…? Wait. Her hand came to rest on the targeting device again. She knew what she had to do. When Legion came over her COMM to tell her they could escape before it was back to full functionality, she took action. "No. Pull over."

_"Terra, what are you doing?!" Garrus demanded even as they stopped._

"If we leave now, the geth stay under Reaper control and the quarians are dead. This ends _now_." She drew the targeting device, readying it. "EDI, sync the _Normandy_'s targeting computer to the Heavy Fleet. All of us together can take it down."

_"Terra, this is insane! You can't—!"_

"I can do this, love. You with me or not?"

_"…always."_

_"Both of us," Tali assured her._

_"Shepard-Commander?" Legion added in, "…good luck."_

She smiled. "Acknowledged." Keeping all their words close at hand, close to her heart, to keep her resolve steady, she waited for the geth vehicle to carry her three friends safely away from the cliff face. Then she armed the targeting device and faced down the recovering Reaper. "Alright, robo-squid. Let's dance."

Garrus was right, this was the craziest thing she'd ever done. Well, maybe it was tied with killing the Tuchanka Reaper by throwing Kalros at it. Regardless, here she was, a 5'7" human against a 5000'7" sentient machine. To her good fortune, the first shot it made arched upward at the Fleet, every ship too distant to reach from here as long as she could cut it off. So she aimed right at the source of the offending beam and pulled the trigger. Within two seconds, every cannon overhead had fired down into the Reaper's maw and sent it staggering backwards. Somehow, though, that managed to give away her position and set the Reaper to take aim on her directly. Now it was a game of tag, except "it" means "vaporized." She immediately fell into a rhythm of sprinting across the small cliff side to duck under its slightly off-center shot (likely a side effect of the first two shots it'd taken—thank you, quarians) and, when the cannons were primed for another shot again, send up the targeting data again. This worked perfectly twice. The third time, it was too close to run from. The Reaper was struggling to keep its feet as it came right on top of her to take aim at the same time she did.

Boom. The final shot from the Heavy Fleet ripped through the air and carved into the Reaper's chassis, shattering its weapon and sending it tumbling to the ground in a broken heap. When Terra tentatively drew closer to check if it was going to stay down, it turned its eye on her. "**Shepard.**"

She looked at it, spiteful and curious at the same time as she holstered the targeting device. "You know who I am?"

"**Harbinger speaks of you. You resist, but you will fail. The cycle cannot be broken.**"

She scoffed. "You underestimate us." Seeing that the great and powerful machine had been reduced to taunts without any bite to them, she turned to check the aftermath of her standoff with it. The battle ahead was silent (then again, it was in space, so that might not be the best indicator of a ceasefire), and the geth vehicle had apparently come to a stop not far away to observe her struggle (probably Garrus and Tali asked Legion to do that just in case), so Garrus, Tali, and Legion were now coming up to take her side. Seeing them, she knew her words would ring true when she turned to face the Reaper again and cut off its tirade: "You. Whatever race you were before the Reapers harvested you to 'save' you, you've been avenged." As if that was what it needed to hear, the Reaper's menacing red glare dimmed to nothing. "And you won't be the last."

She had barely turned around before Garrus rushed over to wrap his arms around her. "Stop doing that!"

She smirked. "Perils of our line of work, hon. Trust me, you do it, too, sometimes."

Tali kept her focus on the fallen titan. "We…we _killed a Reaper_. Keelah…"

Legion checked its systems. "We can confirm the Reaper has ceased its control of all geth systems. We are free."

Terra only had two seconds to smile delightedly at the news before Gerrel cut in over her COMM. _"You did it, Shepard. The geth fleet has stopped firing. They're completely vulnerable!"_

Legion quickly stepped in. "Shepard-Commander, the geth only acted in self-defense. Do we deserve death?"

Terra looked at the geth sniper uncertainly. "What are you saying?"

"Our upgrades. We can distribute them to all geth."

"But that would make the geth as smart as when the Reaper was controlling them!" Tali argued.

"Yes, but with free will. We would be alive, and we could help you."

"The fleet is already attacking! If we give the geth that kind of advantage, they'll destroy us!"

Legion looked at her as if in regret. "Do you remember the question that caused the creators to attack us originally, Creator-Tali'Zorah? '…does this unit have a soul?'"

Terra hated to admit it (or maybe that's just what you say when facing a choice like this), but Legion was right. "Upload the code. Tali, you can call off the fleet if you do it fast."

Legion quickly set to work. "Establishing connection. Beginning download. 10%…"

"Tali'Zorah to fleet," Tali quickly began to plead into her COMM, "Hold fire!"

_"Belay that order!" Gerrel immediately countermanded, "Continue the attack!"_

"25%…" Legion said.

Tali heard that percentage like a countdown clock. Counting down to her people's extinction. Even through the helmet, there was no denying the desperation in her eyes when she turned to her former commander again. "Terra, please…"

But Terra wasn't taking sides this time. She always found another way. This time, she was just going to have to _make_ one. "EDI, patch me through to the Fleet."

Tali's desperate look faded to confusion. "What?"

Terra ignored it, taking the front beside Legion. "This is Commander Shepard! The geth are about to return to full strength! If you don't stand down, they'll kill you all!"

Seeing what she meant, Tali quickly piggybacked onto EDI's signal. "This is Admiral Tali'Zorah! Shepard speaks with my authority!"

_"And mine as well!" Koris quickly agreed._

_"No!" Gerrel asserted, "We can still win this!"_

"50%…" Legion said.

"Listen to me!" Terra quickly said, "I know what it's like to want your home back, but what good does it do you if you lose your own lives taking it?! You've let a misunderstanding guide your entire history, let fear and hate hold you back, and you don't have to anymore! You forced the geth to rebel and you forced them to ally with the Reapers, but it's not too late to fix it!"

"75%…"

"The geth don't want to fight you! If you can just believe that for five seconds, this war is already over! Please. …Keelah se'lai." She lowered her hand from her COMM, waiting for some sign that her words, as poetic as they were commanding, as true to the geth as they were to the quarians, would ring true.

She was not disappointed. _"All ships…" Gerrel spoke up, "…hold fire."_

Terra and Tali in unison breathed a sigh of relief, not even noticing until they were already together that they were hugging.

But then Legion stopped. "Error. Copying code insufficient. …direct personality dissemination…required."

Terra looked at the geth in confusion. She didn't like the sound of this.

Legion faced her. Even the light she'd only ever seen curiosity and warmth in had grown sorrowful. "Terra, I must go to them. I am…sorry. It's the only way."

Terra stared at the geth sadly. Words failed her completely now. Surely this was a mistake. Surely she was misunderstanding.

But Tali faced Legion head-on, the look in her eyes saying all she needed to even before she said it out loud. "Legion…the answer to your question? It was 'yes.'"

Legion nodded. "I know. But thank you, Tali. Keelah se'lai." So he turned his gaze to the sunset. And his platform fell silent for good.

Terra felt like the whole world had gone silent. It took her a moment to even realize that she was on her knees with Garrus holding onto her, that Tali was kneeling beside Legion's hollow platform as if performing last rites.

Another friend gone. Three lost to this war—four if you counted Virmire. How much more loss would she have to endure before this was over?

How much more could she take?

An hour later, Raan came up to them on the cliff side. "Commander."

Terra nodded. "Admiral. I heard you made a crash landing. Glad to see you're OK."

"I was listening over the radios. If Han'Gerrel hadn't stopped…"

"He did."

Raan sighed. "We've taken heavy losses. I don't know if we can… Where are we supposed to go?!"

They all jumped, Tali reaching for her weapon, to see a Prime approaching. But the geth didn't even arm itself, facing Raan in an almost…friendly way. "You are welcome to return to Rannoch, Admiral Raan, with us."

Terra looked at the Prime in shock. "Legion?"

"No. I am sorry, Commander. Legion sacrificed itself to give us all intelligence. It will be honored."

She smiled. A bittersweet, regretful gesture. "Good." While Raan and the geth were discussing where they would go from here and offering assistance with the war effort, though, Terra turned to see Garrus and Tali sitting down on the cliff. She quickly came over to sit between them.

Garrus took her hand as if on reflex the second she sat down. "Are you OK?"

She sighed sadly. "I will be. At least once his name is on the memorial wall."

"'His'?"

"You didn't hear it? 'Terra.' 'Tali.' 'Keelah se'lai.' …'_I'm_ sorry.'" She looked out at the sunset that had been his last sight. "…he was a person then."

Garrus sighed, seeing this for himself. "He was. Guess we'll owe all this to him."

Terra looked down, fighting how badly her grief was building. Even she had her breaking point, and this was cutting it too close. For all she knew, she would fall to pieces the second she was safely confined in her quarters again.

But Tali quickly cut through the sorrow in the air with a sudden declaration. "I'm coming with you."

Terra quickly turned to her in shock. "What?"

"I'm not staying. _I'm coming with you_."

"That…Tali, you just got this place back, I can't take you away from that."

"It's waited 300 years, it can wait a little longer. That Reaper wasn't acting alone. They're going to come back. We have to stop them."

Terra understood, but she still felt the need to argue. "Tali, if I could go back to Palaven or Mindoir now, I think it'd be worth the risk that the war doesn't need one more soldier. Even one as special as you."

"Sweet talker." She shook her head. "No. I can't. I look at this vision of hope and peace…and all I see is everyone I've lost. Everyone I should be fighting for. My father, my team on Haestrom, even Legion." She scoffed. "_I'm mourning a geth_. How crazy is that?"

Terra sighed. "It's not crazy at all." She proved this by reaching over to plant something in the soil. About ten minutes before, she had found a sheet rock and used her omni-tool to make something resembling a memorial or gravestone.

Here lies the site of Legion's sacrifice  
A friend, a crewmate, and a hero to two peoples  
Let his life be proof that we are not so different  
Let his death be proof of what we can all become

Tali felt the words strike her. They couldn't be denied. She was already sure, but now she was determined. "I'm coming with you. We're going to stop them. …they're going to pay."

Terra nodded. "They will."

The three of them sat with that sentiment ringing out, reddening the air like blood stained with rage. The Reapers truly did underestimate them. Or at least they underestimated the _Normandy_. And that would be their downfall.

After a moment had passed in which calm could settle in, Tali sighed. "It is beautiful, isn't it?"

Terra looked at the horizon once more, casting aside the grief behind it to gaze with an artist's eye. The sight made her smile again, made her fingers itch to add it to her drawings. "Yeah. It is."

Tali stood up. "It'll be years before we can live without our suits completely, but…right now…" Shocking them both, she reached up to remove her mask and lower her hood, letting luminescent lavender eyes glisten in the sunlight and dark hair shift in waves with the breeze. "…right now…I have _this_."

Garrus and Terra didn't have to speak or even look at each other to agree. The last 24 hours had been worth it to see Tali's face.


	71. Many Happy Returns

Chapter 71: Many Happy Returns

Though we may be separated  
Still we are tied  
Even when lost in darkness, always  
This one cord we can find

Tali was fiddling with some circuitry in the drive core when Terra arrived. "No…no, I guess that's right…" She was so deep in it that she didn't notice her friend had entered until she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned around to find warm sapphire eyes gazing at her as if wistfully picturing what she now knew was beneath her helmet. "Terra! Hi. I just got word from the Fl— Sorry. From Rannoch."

Terra smirked. "It's gonna take a while to get used to that, huh?"

Tali nodded. "Yeah. I used to send a lot of tech scraps home, but I guess I should be doing that with agriculture samples now. I don't know anything about raising crops."

Terra shrugged, leaning against the rail. "I could give you a hand with that."

Tali snickered. "Right. I forgot about that."

"Hey, I managed to maintain my own food supply on _Palaven_, of all places. You can count on me."

"I don't doubt it. You've certainly proven impressive everywhere else. Except dancing."

"Hardy-har. So what's going on back on Rannoch?"

"It's crazy. The geth are actually helping. They're doing in days what would've taken us years. Some are even uploading into the suits of quarian volunteers, simulating infections to jumpstart our immune systems!"

Terra looked at her in amazement. "That's incredible! You mean you won't even need the suits anymore?!"

"It's strange to think of, but yes. In a few years, with geth improvements, we won't need them. We might still wear them, the suits have become part of our society, but a rupture won't be a death sentence anymore. Right now, there are quarian children that will grow up healthy and strong under the home-world's skies. And it's all thanks to the geth. And thanks to you."

Terra was reveling in the knowledge that they might see the day where Tali could breathe freely, feel the world around her in full color, and show her face to her family. When she heard that last sentence, though, she turned to Tali in incredulity. "Tali, I know I was pretty persuasive back there, but you could've done it, too."

"…no. I'd have killed the geth with no regrets. And I would've been wrong."

"Tali, Legion was your friend, too. Some part of you knew that. You didn't have to see what I saw in the consensus to know this was the right answer."

"I appreciate your faith in me, Terra, but I'm not like you. I don't see the poetic unions like you do."

"Have you tried getting adopted by an alien species? It does wonders for that."

Tali sighed. "Stop trying to make me laugh, I'm trying to work."

Terra stepped back. "Alright. I'll leave you to it. Oh! But before I go…" She reached into her pack and pulled out her sketchbook, carefully removing one page from within. "Garrus has one of Palaven. And one of Earth, actually. I thought you'd appreciate this one."

Tali took the page like she would a precious jewel. She hadn't seen much of Terra's artwork, but this one took her breath away with wonder. There was the Rannoch horizon they had marveled at together, in stunning detail. "Terra, this is…" She hesitated to fold it but finally placed it gently in the pocket next to where she was keeping her new favorite rock so that she could gratefully hug her best friend. "Thank you."

Terra hugged her back. "You know I love you."

Hearing the subtle meaning behind the word, the way Terra regarded her as such a close friend they were practically family, Tali couldn't help but smile. "I guess I do."

Terra left the engineering deck feeling as if the ship had never felt so much like a home. She regretted the holes that seemed to have been left behind by Thane, Mordin, and Legion. When she had gone back to the AI core to see Violet, she had stumbled on the nagging thought that Legion belonged in there and her sister had had to grieve with her over the lost geth. Violet hadn't had as much time to befriend him as Terra had, but she knew enough to understand the remarkable, unique pain of this particular loss. It would be hard to get over. Hopefully, avenging him by destroying the Reapers with the help of her surviving crewmates (family), her best friend, and her mate would heal the hurt. Or at least help to.

She could at least start by putting some distance between them and Rannoch, so she headed up to the CIC to set the next course. Just as she was approaching the galaxy map, Traynor informed her she'd found something. A bunch of Cerberus defecting scientists were pinned down on Gellix. Good enough for Terra. The _Normandy_ went straight there. It was literally on the other side of the galaxy in the Minos Wasteland, so it would take at least a day to get there, but that gave her some time to simply be with Garrus for a combined rest from battle, celebration of the peace she'd made, and mourning of their losses. She could definitely count on Garrus for all of the above and more.

When Terra, Garrus, and Ashley moved out on Gellix, Cerberus was already there engaging the scientists. It proved easy enough to clear the area, even as Garrus took time to complain about the freezing weather (Terra chided him for him, but she also agreed, seeing as how they both preferred Palaven's heat). The real surprise came from who was leading the defense.

"Jacob!" Terra took her wounded former crewmate's side. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm trying to keep these people safe from the Illusive Man's attack dogs," Jacob shook his head, "Good to see you showing up, though."

"Heard you could use a hand."

Jacob smirked, glancing over at Garrus. "Oh, and look at that. Where one goes, the other follows. Glad to know some things don't change."

Garrus shook his head. "Staying out of trouble, I see."

_"Jacob, are you there?" a nearby abandoned COMM unit turned on._

Terra quickly retrieved it. "This is Commander Shepard. Cerberus is gone for now."

_"Is Jacob there?"_

"It's OK, Bryn!" Jacob answered.

The doors immediately opened to let them in. Terra helped Jacob while Garrus and Ashley watched the perimeter. Once they were all safely inside, they just needed to plan their next move—start mobilizing for an evacuation now Terra, Garrus, and Ashley could watch their backs. They'd have to be quick and careful, though, since there were families on the line. Of course, all three of them had an axe to grind where Cerberus was concerned and a lot of pent-up aggression to burn off. The assaulting troopers fell all too easily to the three snipers' combined offense before they even saw them coming. The repairs they needed to make to the base's systems weren't even that difficult—Terra was able to finish the first two by herself. The third repair, however, involved restarting an entire AA system, which meant one of them was going to have to bunker down and fiddle with the circuitry while the other two held off Cerberus reinforcements.

Terra knew only one of them was definitely up to that. "Counting on you, love."

Garrus smirked as he set to work, briefly taking her hand on the way there. "Goes both ways."

She knew that. She was already drawing her rifle when the shuttles started moving in. "Ready, Ash?"

Ashley smiled, readying her rifle as well. "Born that way."

Terra hadn't realized how much she had missed holding the line in the thick of it with Ashley. She and Garrus played to each other's strengths well enough, but she and Ashley could cover each other's weaknesses. Between Terra's well-aimed incendiary shots and Ashley's constant barrages of inferno grenades, the few invading Cerberus troops that didn't burn to death fell to combined fire from the two human Spectres. By the time Garrus was done with the repairs, the entire field was clear and it was time to head back in and start the evacuation. He made it clear he was impressed but a little disappointed.

The first shuttle carried every minor in the base away safely. It had been gone no more than ten seconds before Cerberus suicide-bombed the AA gun and started dropping in yet more reinforcements (what, did the Illusive Man start a cloning project so he'd have an endless supply or something?!). Terra managed to quickly dispatch the few troopers that dove in through the windows, giving the scientists time to rush for the shuttles, and then led Garrus and Ashley down into the shuttle bay to subsequently dispatch the incursion teams so the main doors could be opened to start launching the rest of the evacuation. Then it was just a matter of the three of them holding the landing pad until the last shuttle had gotten through. Which, of course, ended in a fight with an Atlas. Even with Garrus overloading its shields and Ashley's grenades tearing through its armor, it didn't go down easy. As far as Terra was concerned, though, all that mattered was that it went down. After it did, all they had to do was wait for Jacob and Bryn to sweep around in the last shuttle and pick them up. It wasn't the most elegant escape, considering Terra's attempt to hold off Cerberus fire ended with her being knocked off her feet by a rocket and dragged back by, you guessed it, Garrus while Jacob laid down a few shots to buy them the time they needed to actually extract. Once they were on their way, though, there was no sign they were being followed. They'd done it.

Jacob volunteered to stay with the scientists while they integrated into the Crucible project, so it was safe to say the mission was complete and a definite success. With everything going on, though, Terra wasn't the least bit surprised that Liara called her up two minutes after they were back on the _Normandy_ to inform her that Asari High Command was asking for their help investigating a site some commandos had gone missing in. It wasn't that far, so Terra had Joker head straight there. Once again, she spent the travel time with Violet and then with Garrus. She didn't let herself think that it was because she needed an escape from the madness or because she soon might have the chance to anymore.

It was nice that they were getting into a pattern of knowing exactly how bad things were going to turn before they even arrived at the mission site, but it was still upsetting that the pattern was necessary. On the shuttle ride to the planet surface, Liara informed Terra and Garrus that High Command had left out a key detail: they were headed to an _Ardat-Yakshi_ monastery. Terra tensed up when she heard the word, though Liara was quick to assure them that these wouldn't be like Morinth, that they had isolated themselves to avoid a fate like hers. Terra, ever the peacemaker, elected to reserve judgment until they saw what had happened, so she also elected to reserve judgment on the fact that the commandos had apparently planted a bomb somewhere on the grounds. They were just going to have to move in and see what was going on.

Not to say the entire war hadn't felt a bit like this, but entering the monastery felt like watching the Reapers remove the seven seals on an ancient evil's crypt. The first sign was how, even though there was a still warm skycar parked at the entrance telling them that someone else was there, the doors were locked open to an empty elevator shaft. The second sign was the darkness they descended into. The third was the emptiness. The fourth countered that emptiness with a distant shriek that made their blood run cold. The fifth was the carnage they found within, select few Reaper bodies to confirm their presence amidst an alarmingly larger number of fallen asari. Liara was able to scan the commandoes' gear and confirm that the bomb was in the Great Hall at the heart of the monastery. There was nothing left to do but go down towards the sixth and seventh levels of horror that awaited them.

So it was an especially pleasant surprise to see a friendly face on the other side of the first door, dispatching a Cannibal just in time to greet them. "Very good. I almost didn't hear you."

Terra beamed. "Samara? What brings you out here?"

The justicar didn't show it, but they could tell she was happy to see them. "Two of my daughters live here. I've come to make sure they're safe."

"That we can help you with. Do you know what happen—?"

She was cut off by the sound of a scream echoing through the building.

"We're out of time!" Samara exclaimed, "I'll hold them off!" She then headed down a corridor Terra, Garrus, and Liara couldn't reach.

"_Wait_—!" Terra tried to call. Too late. She sighed, turning to her squad. "We'd better get down there."

She had assumed the scream was a survivor being tortured by the Reapers. Not entirely false. But the reality was the sixth sign of the horrors to come. They met it the second they climbed down a stairwell into a courtyard. The sight of it made all three of them freeze. At least for the half second before they were forced to dive for cover.

The Reapers' harvest continued to spread. It had finally reached the asari. The creature they were corrupted into was the biggest abomination they'd faced since the Brutes first came on the scene. Terra's nightmares had been plagued by Marauders several times, but she had to think that even if those nightmares had attempted to predict the fate of the other species, she wouldn't have dreamed up something this horrendous. Between the claws, the screech, the twisted biotics, and the dead eyes, it was a complete inversion of everything the asari were. Based on that assessment and Liara's woeful terror, though, Terra was able to overcome that disgusted, fearful reaction with a certain, furious resolution.

This monster had to die.

Liara wasn't so distraught that she couldn't still fight upon Terra's insistence. She quickly sprang into action to warp the creature's barrier so Terra and Garrus could start shooting at it. They only got in four shots before it started putting its powers to use, springing across the battlefield in three bursts of biotic-charged movement to flank them. Terra didn't like the thought of being within range of those claws, quickly pushing Liara out of the way of them. Just as they dodged it, the creature let off that blood-curdling screech again. Being this close to it not only staggered Terra but made her feel like the cybernetics in her ears had overloaded. As usual, though, the second she was thrown off-balance, Garrus jumped to cover her, a quick overload attack stunning the remains of the creature's warped barrier so he could snipe it three times in the head. The first two shots struck, clearly hitting hard enough to put the thing on its last leg, but then it started charging again. The three of them managed to put enough distance between them that it couldn't catch them flanked again, Garrus even managing to preempt its last jump with a proximity mine. Before he could finish it, it sent out a warp field of its own directly at him. He ducked down just fast enough to avoid it, hearing a shot go off behind him. When he came back up, the creature had fallen. Terra's gun wasn't up, though. Liara's was.

With the fight over, Liara was shaking. Terra quickly took this opportunity to take her friend's side, but Liara was too shaken to even notice. "That…that _thing_ used to be…"

Terra laid a supporting hand on her shoulder. "We're going to stop them. They're going to pay for this."

Garrus stepped up with her. "And we're going to start by blowing this place."

Liara nodded, but her eyes betrayed that she wasn't satisfied. She wouldn't be until they lived up to their word.

When Liara was willing to move again, they hurried back inside through the courtyard door just in time to see Samara throw another Cannibal, taking it down so she could turn to the asari it had been targeting and make sure she was alright. After receiving an affirmative answer, she gave Terra a welcoming look. "Commander Shepard, this is Falere, my youngest. She and her sister—"

"Mother!" Falere cut in, her voice shaking with terror, "They have Rila!"

Samara turned to her in shock. "What?"

"I saw those monsters taking her into the Great Hall!"

Terra quickly took the front. "We're going in after her. We'll have to move fast once we have her, though, if we're going to detonate that bomb on the way out."

Falere turned to her in shock. "A bomb? Didn't you come here to save people?"

"Of course we did, but the best way to do that is making sure none of these _things_ get out behind us."

"You sound like the commandoes. They didn't stop to help anyone!"

"Falere…" Samara chided gently.

Falere was past that already. Before any of them could stop her, she'd jumped over the railing, using her biotics to soften the fall, and raced off after her sister. Samara quickly copied the trick to follow her down.

Terra looked over at the elevator. If the bullet holes were anything to go by, it wasn't working. She turned to Liara. "Don't suppose you know how to do that?"

Liara shrugged. "Not really."

"Guess we're taking the stairs, then."

The stairs led through the dorms, which happened to be full of Cannibals and another one of the formerly asari monsters. This one was no easier than the last, but they knew what to expect now and still took it down in time to keep moving. This one fell dead as one last screech echoed through the room.

Terra groaned, her ears still not accustomed to the noise yet. "Why did the Reapers have to make those things wail like Banshees?"

"Like what?" Liara asked.

"Banshees. Earth folklore monster. They stood outside people's houses and screamed to foretell of a death inside."

"Were all human tales so grim?"

"Considering most of them were written either in the _Dark_ Ages or by the _Grimm_ Brothers? Yeah, pretty much." Inwardly, she noted that Banshee was probably the ideal name for the asari husks. She was starting to wish she wasn't so good at that.

The seventh horror of this nightmare was on the other side of the next door, in the Great Hall itself. The bomb was in plain view, ready for them. Samara was already there with Falere, standing over an unconscious asari that Falere's frantic cries identified as Rila. Falere was finally able to rouse Rila and help her to her feet…only for her eyes to turn black and her hands to wrap around her sister's throat.

Falere quickly pushed her off, unintentionally shoving so hard that she knocked her sister back out. "Why…why did she do that?"

Samara took her side sadly. "Because she's begun to turn into one of the Reapers' creatures."

Terra gave the justicar a sympathetic look. One daughter already lost and now another? She deserved better. So much better. "…I'm sorry."

Samara didn't accept it. But the look she gave to Terra let her know the offer was appreciated.

Terra knew the justicar well enough to know that it was best to leave her to her thoughts. They needed to finish the mission now. So she turned to Garrus. "Can we set off the bomb?"

Garrus finished looking over the device and shook his head. "Not without a detonator."

"The commandoes would've had one. We just have to—"

That's when two more Banshees arrived.

"…later."

Samara quickly raised a barrier to keep her daughters safe, unfortunately preventing herself from joining the fight. Liara stayed low, throwing out warp fields every chance she got while Terra and Garrus stayed on the move to avoid the opposition's responding attacks and shoot every chance they got. It was hard and unnerving and it would haunt their nightmares, but they survived.

Rila didn't. When it was clear, she stood up to face her sister, her eyes no longer darkened by Reaper controls. "Falere, go! Take the elevator!"

"Rila—" Falere tried to argue.

"It's too late for me," Rila said sadly. Before reaching into her pocket to reveal the detonator. "I love you."

Realizing what she had to do and regretting it the second she did it, Terra grabbed Falere and started dragging her to the elevator as Samara, Liara, and Garrus got on. Falere fought every step, reaching for the sister she was being forced to leave behind, but Terra finally managed to close the doors. They were halfway up the shaft when the bomb went off.

When they were back outside, Falere walked to the edge of the balcony, looking out at the horizon as she cried. "Rila…there wasn't even time to say goodbye…"

Terra knew what that was like. Then again, she'd found her sister again. That wouldn't happen here.

So she let Samara take the front on this one. "Few can break the Reapers' hold. Rila's will was extraordinary. As was her love for you."

Falere glared at her mother fiercely. "We left her there to die!"

Samara looked at her daughter sadly. "Rila's sacrifice has reminded me why I became a justicar. …Falere…the Code dictates an Ardat-Yakshi cannot live outside a monastery that no longer exists."

Terra reacted immediately, on edge the second she saw Samara draw her pistol. "What are you doing?!"

"I am sorry, Shepard. By the Code…there is only one way to save Falere." Ignoring her daughter's shocked cries, she turned the gun on herself. "My daughters. You were all so much stronger than I believed."

Terra surprised even herself with how fast she moved. She wasn't losing another friend. Not when there was finally something she could do to prevent it. She grabbed Samara by the wrist, twisting the gun from her hand and restraining her before she could pick it up again. "Samara, stop! You can't do this!"

"I won't kill my last daughter!" Samara snapped back.

Terra had no argument for that, but Falere stepped up for her. "You won't have to. I'll stay here. Home. No matter what's become of it. And if the Reapers return, they won't take me alive."

Samara seemed uncertain. But she finally stood down, letting Terra back off so she could face her daughter. "Then the Code permits you to stay. As you are." She didn't respond at first when Falere hugged her. But she didn't let the chance go by. "When I have time, I will visit. As a justicar should."

Terra smiled. It was nice to see one family wasn't completely destroyed by this. "You could stay with her. Help her rebuild."

"I will return," Samara assured her, "But it is past time I joined your fight."

"…good to know you'll be out there."

It was good to know. All of Terra's friends were safely accounted for now (well, except Miranda, who was only communicating in short bursts as she continued looking for her sister), and the war was turning in their favor with the turians and krogan and geth and quarians working together. Even with the losses they'd taken, she really and truly had hope.

Especially when she went to see Garrus afterwards. When she found him looking over a message on his omni-tool instead of poring over algorithms, she knew something was up. "What is it?"

He looked at her with relief in his eyes. "Dad and Solana. They made it off Palaven. They're almost to the Citadel right now."

She burst with joyful relief so suddenly that she didn't even realize she was moving until her arms were around him and his were around hers. Their family was safe. It seemed too good to be true.

So she couldn't blame him for his suggestion: "I, uh…I was thinking that…maybe…maybe we could…and they could…"

She smirked as she heard the meaning beneath his words, leaning back to meet his eyes. "Like Violet?"

He shrugged. "At least so they could meet her. It's not that I don't trust the Citadel, it's just—"

"I get it. And you're right. They should stay close. Someone's gotta make sure they stay out of trouble."

He smirked. "Not to mention Solana's gonna want to help plan the wedding."

She laughed. "Of course."

"We'll have to be careful. We might set a precedent for the crew like this."

"Special circumstances?"

"Well, Dad's still a veteran C-Sec officer who was friends with the last Primarch and you're still playing diplomat for the turians with your adopted status, so I'm sure there's a tactician point we can work in as an excuse if it comes to that."

"And Sol is injured, so she'll need the best care, and we just happen to have the best doctor in the galaxy onboard."

"Plus the Citadel is starting to get overcrowded in the hospital and the refugee camp."

"So we're really just helping C-Sec."

"Right."

"Right. EDI!"

_"Jeff is already plotting a course."_

Terra smirked. "See? EDI agrees."

Terra suddenly realized that most of their journeys recently had given her a sense of anxiety and uncertainty. This one filled her with anticipation and excitement. After they'd hit the relay, she spent the approach to the Citadel bouncing on her feet by the airlock and not caring who noticed. Garrus met her there just as they were docking, the two of them the first and fastest to leave the ship. She did take the time to distantly note where everyone else was going—Ashley was going to meet her own recently evacuated family, Joker was going to show EDI around, Tali was going to coordinate with the turians about the Migrant Fleet bolstering the hierarchy's efforts, and Liara had volunteered to take Violet on a tour of her own that she had remarked with a wink would end at the hospital—but Terra and Garrus were both mostly focused on getting to the hospital and finding its newest patient. Between Terra's Spectre status and the fact they were family, it didn't take long to find them.

The second Terra opened the door to the treatment room and saw Solana sitting there, she practically leaped over to hug her. She just barely stopped herself when she remembered Solana's broken leg, but that didn't stop her from a more careful approach to the same ends. "You have no idea how good it is to see you!"

Solana smirked as she hugged her back. "Right back at you, farm girl."

Terra scoffed. "Don't tell me you actually worried."

"We both did," Castis said, laying a hand on her shoulder.

Garrus shook his head as he stepped up to greet his father. "You're actually admitting that?"

Castis sighed. "We knew it was going to be bad, but…seeing it…"

"…I know."

Terra drifted with the three of them into a solemn silence, all wordlessly paying respects to Palaven's fallen. But she also didn't want to sour this reunion so quickly. Not when there was good news to be shared to avert it. "Actually, Garrus and I had something to tell you."

Garrus smirked, wrapping his arm around her waist when she took his side. "We're going to be bonded."

Solana, after taking a few seconds for the news to sink in, immediately burst with delight. "Really?! That's wonderful! When?!"

"After the war's over," Terra answered, showing her adopted sister her ring, "We're going to try doing it mostly by human standards…"

While the two were enveloped in a spirited discussion of wedding plans (just as Garrus had suspected, since sisters are sisters by species or not), Castis gave his son a look. It seemed questioning at first, as if making sure this was the right decision and they were both certain of it, before he realized there had never been a need for questioning where this pairing was concerned and his glance turned almost proud. It spoke to Garrus just as his sub-vocals would: _Your mother would be happy, if only she'd had the chance to see it._

Garrus simply nodded. He had to believe that Terra was right and his mother was looking down on them proudly. He still missed her. If Terra's experience was anything to go by, part of him always would. But family sticks together. Even then.

"…and what about me?" Solana was asking, "Do you need me to be involved?"

"I might, actually," Terra answered, "But we can discuss that on the ship."

"Right, we…we can…what?"

Terra shrugged. "We were kind of hoping the two of you would come on the _Normandy_ with us until then."

Castis instantly started debating this. "That's not necessary. The Citadel is perfectly safe—"

"Dad, it was attacked last week," Garrus pointed out, "And we have thought this through."

"Besides," Terra said, "there's, uh…someone aboard I think you should meet." No sooner had she said so than her COMM beeped. It was Liara's signal. She didn't even need to answer to smile with the knowledge of what the message was, pinging her own COMM to give Liara her location. "Speaking of which…" She headed over to the door, keeping it open until said someone could enter with her.

Solana, like Garrus, only needed a quick glance to see exactly who it was. "Is…is that…?"

Terra nodded, still smiling as she delicately pulled her sister closer to them. "Violet, this is Garrus' dad and sister."

Castis, ever the detective, found himself remembering the day he'd first met Terra, a small, shattered teenager closing herself off even as she tried to show her gratitude for taking her in. Now here was Violet, a small, shattered woman closing herself off even as she tried to show her gratitude for her sister's sake. From the way she was looking at them, warm though wary, it was clear she was still getting used to meeting strangers but had heard all about her sister's adopted turian family. From the way she carried herself, it was clear she was endeavoring to overcome her trauma as her sister had. Maybe it was that memory that pushed his protective instincts and made him realize he was going to have to go along with Terra's suggestion and be family to this human as well.

Or maybe it was because he knew that was what his wife would've wanted.

Solana, seeming to come to this conclusion on her own, gave Violet a welcoming smile. "So you're the one she was always talking about."

Violet gave a reserved but flattered smile. "Same here."

Solana laughed. "Guess that makes us sisters."

Terra and Garrus exchanged smiles as the "sisters" started getting to know each other. It was safe to say their lives were looking up.

And about to get a lot more interesting.


	72. Progenitors

Chapter 72: Progenitors

Life breeds distance  
Yet still we must return  
Where we began will call to us  
With lessons to be learned

No one seemed particularly surprised that Garrus and Terra brought their family back with them. Chakwas actually seemed to have been expecting to take Solana on as a patient and assure her that her leg would be back to normal in no time at all thanks to 22nd-century medicine. While Garrus was following Violet back into the AI core, presumably to tell her more about his family, Terra was staying close to Solana and waiting for Castis to inevitably start debating this arrangement again.

He didn't disappoint. "You really don't need to do this. The Citadel is in contact range."

"It's also getting overcrowded," Terra countered, "And in case you haven't noticed, Garrus and I have a vested interest in not losing the rest of our family if anything like the Cerberus coup happens again. We already cut it close enough."

"Yeah," Solana sighed, "We really did. We did everything you said, we ran for the evac shuttles the second word reached us they were coming, but they hit so fast…"

Terra had known that was what happened, but hearing it now made her question the rest of the story. She wasn't sure she wanted to hear the rest. Still, she asked. "How'd you hold out?"

"There are still emergency shelters in Cipritine. We didn't expect them to hold as long as they did. Dad and I, along with a few civilians who managed to follow us down, stayed out of sight, down where there were rations and air filters. Never thought I'd see the day our cities were so trashed that their ashes became a breathing hazard. A few of the evac shuttles were still intact on the other side of the city, no one had managed to get to them. When the krogan came through, it gave us all time to run and a distraction during which to take off." She nodded to her leg. "The running part didn't go so smoothly." She smiled, glancing at her father out of the corner of her eye. "But some people aren't so easily deterred." She ignored his response, shrugging to herself. "We made it, though. And now here we are. Not to mention you've got a rescued sister and a shiny new ring, so I think we can chalk this one up as a happy ending."

Terra shook her head. "I wouldn't go that far. War's still not over yet."

"We heard about Tuchanka and Rannoch. You keep that up and it will be soon."

Terra smirked. It was nice to hear Solana believe in her like that. "Just rest your leg. I want to see both my sisters walking around before this over." She turned to Castis. "And if you're still not convinced you have a place on the ship, I can set you up at a tactician's console in the war room. It's certainly no stranger to turians these days."

Whether or not he still wanted to debate the matter, he seemed to see there was no talking her out of it and that she had a genuine excuse with this offer. So he nodded. "Alright. Show me what you've got."

While Terra was taking him up to show off the vast array of war assets they'd gathered so far, Garrus was with Violet. The former prodigy had only received the basics of the story from Terra and was very interested in learning more about her sister's adopted family. It was only when Garrus realized he had run out of stories of Terra and Solana (most of the time the two had spent together had managed to somehow exclude him, after all) that he suggested she ask Solana directly and get to know her.

Violet shied away from the offer. "I…I will, I just…" She sighed. "I'm still getting used to all this."

He nodded in understanding. In a way, what Violet was going through really was a reflection of what Terra endured when she first came to Palaven. This time, he knew how to handle it: give her time, be there for her when she needed someone. So far, she was recovering even faster than Terra had, a true testament to the famous Shepard stubbornness.

Then she suggested something he wasn't expecting. "I was actually hoping I could keep getting to know you first."

He looked at her warily. "What do you mean?"

She sighed. "I can't help but notice I'm the only one on the ship who needs an escort on the Citadel."

"That's just Terra being cautious. You're still a civilian."

"So was she once. And you taught her not to need anyone."

He picked up on her hidden meaning then. She wanted him to do what he'd done for Terra and teach her to fight. "Wait, no. Violet—"

"I just want to be able to look out for myself," she asserted, "I'm tired of being helpless."

He was ready to argue that that was exactly how it started for Terra, that there was a very fine line between defense and offense when it came down to it that neither he nor Terra would want Violet to have to cross. But he just as quickly realized that this was different. Terra had been a helpless witness. Violet had been a helpless _victim_. Terra wanted justice, wanted to make her survival worth something. Violet just wanted peace, wanted to survive at all without staying that helpless victim forever. Terra had needed to go out and face the demons that escaped her. Violet needed to conquer her own. Part of him was still unsure, but there was a simple way to fix that. Asking Violet to give him a second, he turned and whispered into his COMM where she wouldn't hear. "EDI, have you been monitoring her sleeping patterns?"

_"Yes," EDI answered on his private line, "She has been experiencing restless and erratic nights punctuated by spikes in her adrenal levels and brain activity that indicate nightmares."_

That was all he needed to hear. She could fight the trauma in her waking hours, but she needed something to lean on to deal with the memories. Terra had had his family and her lessons with him. Violet had the _Normandy_ crew, so there was only one other thing he could do to help. And as an honorary brother to her, it was his duty to do so. So he turned to her and agreed. "Just the basics. Just enough to defend yourself. If there's ever an actual fight, you don't engage, you call us."

She nodded. "You've made it pretty clear I always can."

He smirked. That they had. "One thing, though. Terra and I traded."

"You what?"

"When I was teaching her how to fight, she was teaching me how to draw."

"You want _me_ to teach _you_ something?"

"Considering we're family—or at least about to be—you don't have to, no."

She thought it over. All she could teach would be musical, and she was pretty certain a turian's talons would be a major hindering towards playing a violin or a flute. She could show anyone around a piano, but she didn't exactly have one handy. What else could…?

…

Oh, wait. She smiled as an idea came over her. "I've got one thing. Something I know Terra would never be able to teach you that would really impress her."

He smirked. "You have my undivided attention."

Two hours later, Terra could safely say things were going well. Castis, upon seeing the forces at their disposal and voicing how impressed he was, had settled into the war room the way he once would've settled into a crime scene. Garrus and Violet had spent an hour in the core before coming out with Violet unusually excited and immediately latching onto Solana to talk. Terra had to ask Garrus what exactly he'd done to get her to start opening up so quickly only for him to give an offhand remark about how he had his ways, some of which he'd learned from her. She had smiled and taking a few moments for him before EDI had informed her that Hackett had something on the Citadel for her to look into before they took off. So she headed straight to the lab to see what was going on.

She traded that one question for 100.

Garrus started to worry something was wrong when she didn't come back within half an hour. He finally asked EDI what was going on only for her to tell him that she had monitored a C-Sec call at the lab and was arriving to check on Terra even as she spoke. He was worried enough to ask if he was needed and receive a simple "I'll let you know if she asks for you" as an answer before talking himself down with the thought that Terra would've called him first before bothering with C-Sec if she was in danger. So he just settled into the battery and waited. When he finally heard them plotting a course for an asteroid in the Caleston Rift, he went out to head off Terra as she came down to deck 3 and ask her what had happened.

"Oh, you know," she shook her head with a heavy sigh, "Scientist finds out the Reapers are looking for something, gets shot by his assistant who then immediately gets amnesia about the whole thing, the usual."

"So I take it we're now hunting down this thing the Reapers are looking for?"

"Yep."

"We should really consider a new line of work after this."

She smirked. "And miss out on all the excitement?"

That was one way to describe it. As soon as Terra, Garrus, and Tali landed on the asteroid, things felt wrong. It wasn't until they fought off the Reaper advance team and went into the mining facility that they _knew_ something was wrong. Everyone inside was acting strange, to put it mildly. It took a lot of investigation just to figure out where the doctor they were chasing down was. Then when they found him, he immediately flipped out like something had hacked his brain and led them on a less-than-merry chase outside past the full contingent of Reaper forces.

"Wherever we are," Garrus shook his head, "expect a 70% chance of Reapers…"

It wasn't an easy fight by any means, but Terra wasn't letting this guy get away that easily. They finally managed to push through and catch the doctor in the last room of the facility. They weren't fast enough to stop him from setting off a detonator that killed him and destroyed the artifact he'd found. Then Tali managed to find data that indicated not only that the artifact was the same as one in the lab on the Citadel but that their dead doctor had been in contact with one Ann Bryson. Terra was ready to head back to the _Normandy_ and go straight back to the Citadel to start taking care of this when the miners came around, snapping out of whatever trance they'd been in with no idea what was going on.

"Cortez, can you bring the shuttle?" Terra asked her COMM over speaker once she was certain they'd done all they could here.

_"Affirmative, commander," Cortez responded, "Funny thing—a few minutes ago, the Reaper forces broke off and left."_

"Reaper?" one of the miners asked, "What's a Reaper?"

Terra tensed. That was a red flag if ever there was one. "What year do you think this is?"

"2176," one of the other miners answered.

"…that was ten years ago."

Those words sent them all into shock. Terra rushed her team out of there after that. She knew what it was like to lose time, even if she couldn't imagine having lost that much. The best thing they could do for it would be to get them home as soon as possible—assuming any of them still had homes to get back to—and then make sure this didn't happen again.

Once they were back on the Citadel, EDI was able to shield the artifact in the lab and determine where Ann Bryson went. Then it was off to the Pylos Nebula to continue the search that was likely to last all week. Garrus and Tali stuck with Terra yet again (they worked best when it was the three of them and everyone knew that), though some part of them sort of regretted that when the shuttle was nearly toppled by a blizzard of Harvesters. The three of them had to scramble across the entire dig site, nearly overwhelmed by Reaper forces being dropped almost endlessly by the Harvesters at every turn, just to get to the building Ann was in. Getting her out wasn't exactly any easier.

The evidence seemed to indicate that this "Leviathan" the Reapers were chasing was a Reaper itself. Terra would've doubted the sense in that assumption had they not found tribal paintings on the mountainside of some race native to this planet bowing to something that was definitely in the form of a Reaper. Ordinarily, she would be awed to find that artworks from a race millions of years dead had survived so long since erosion on a planet this arid was apparently not enough to degrade it, but right now, she was too busy wondering why a Reaper would be actively avoiding or even working against its kindred. She didn't get a chance at finding an answer before they reached the landing pad to find that some of the Reapers forces were using one of the artifacts.

"They've activated it somehow," Ann said, astonished, "I've never managed anything—" She froze, the astonishment fading from her eyes, then suddenly began to step forward.

"Doctor?" Terra prepared to pull her back.

"**They've learned too well**," Ann spoke again, her voice not her own, "**The darkness cannot be breached.**"

Terra reacted on pure instinct, rushing over to grab Ann by the arm and drag her back before the Reapers could start shooting. Just that much prodding was enough to make the doctor fade from consciousness, leaving Terra to pull her to safety even though she was standing right in the open.

Garrus' reaction wasn't so much instinct as panic. "Terra!" He rushed over, helping her back behind cover even as the Reapers caught sight of them and prepared to open fire.

"Take that thing out!" Terra ordered.

Since Garrus was distracted, Tali took care of this one, two shots from her gun destroying the artifact and throwing the entire scene into chaos. The three of them quickly took cover around Ann and waited for Cortez. Waiting quickly turned into a life-or-death matter when a Harvester came down right on the landing pad, but they managed to take it out and run. The _Normandy_ was already moving back to the Citadel when the shuttle came back into its bay.

As soon as he had the chance, Garrus pulled Terra aside and started looking her over. "Are you OK?"

"I'm fine," Terra pushed him back, "Though I can't say I would've been if anything had happened to you while you were charging over without a care! What were you thinking?! Putting yourself in harm's way doesn't always get me out of it!"

He winced. "I wasn't thinking. I was…I was just worried." He sighed, taking her hand. "That's what love does to guys like me. Turns 'em into a nervous wreck with something to lose and the aim to make sure he doesn't." He looked at her, the dread from that moment still echoing in his sapphire eyes even as they found the sympathy in hers, one talon reaching up to gently stroke her hair. "Nobody better hurt you."

She smiled softly, finally leaning over to kiss his scars. "You're getting better at this. One day, you might just outdo me."

He smirked, laying his head on hers. "Not a chance. You're the master."

"Well, I wouldn't go that far…but I love you, too."

When Terra and EDI went back to the lab, James meeting them there, Ann told them her brilliant plan: she could let the artifact in the lab take control of her again so EDI could trace the connection to Leviathan. Terra's brain was starting to lose the ability to consider plans like this insane, likely from overuse. James did that worrying for her, taking position to both lend Ann some strength and restrain her. What followed was unsettling, to say the least, so Terra let James put the shield back up as soon as EDI had the signal. Ann warned them on the way out to be careful—"I think it wants to kill you."

Terra resisted the urge to scoff "Doesn't everything?"

EDI had been able to narrow down the search to one star cluster but not the exact system. At first, Terra thought the time spent scanning would be a nice change of pace in which they could prepare for what would lie ahead (ignoring the brief periods in which the Reapers in the vicinity caught their scanner signal and they had to FTL jump out to reboot the stealth systems, a situation for which Terra genuinely wished they had a red alert button). After nearly two whole days had passed before they found the signal on literally the last planet they checked, she was again feeling put out with this entire situation. She filtered that irritation into purpose, determined to find this thing before the Reapers did, and led Garrus and Tali back down to the armory to mobilize.

The shuttle made it halfway there before they crashed. They managed to land on a fallen ship rather than in the ocean, but that didn't stop the Reapers from following them down and attempting to kill them. Cortez was able to figure out a way to turn their crash site into a weapon, salvaging a mech to turn on the Reaper forces…and then dive down after the probe to track down Leviathan's signal. Now Terra knew the part of her brain that filters out crazy plans was broken because she was certain her every thought should be screaming _BAD IDEA!_ Unfortunately, they didn't have much choice, since trying to take off again without tracking this thing down likely meant they would just crash again, so she went along with it, clearing the area of Cannibals and Brutes to get the mech ready to go.

Garrus took that opportunity to pick up the slack on objecting to this arrangement. "Alright, look, Terra, I'm all for crazy ideas, but this one's off the charts!"

She sighed. "I'm not exactly looking forward to it myself, but the way home is _through_ Leviathan. We're gonna have to try." Once Cortez gave the signal they were ready, she started to climb in to head down.

Garrus stopped her, grabbing her by the wrist. "…Terra…" When she faced him, his eyes were ringing with fear, something that had no place in that fierce gaze, and his talons reached to clutch the hand that had their engagement ring buried under her armor. His words from earlier rang through both their minds. He had already faced two years without her. He couldn't lose her again.

So she quickly laid a gentle hand on his scars and kissed him. "I'll be fine," she whispered.

He knew she never failed to keep a promise, but he also knew there wasn't one behind those words. She knew better than to make one now. Though there was still the hope of one, and that was enough for him to accept it, giving a small nod before stepping back as slowly as he could.

He didn't watch Terra go under. He just kept his COMM linked to hers. That proved insufficient when they almost immediately lost her signal to the depths.

It was his good fortune that Tali was there, just as concerned for Terra but assuring Garrus that nothing could keep Commander Shepard down and she would make it back to them in no time. In a way, it was also his good fortune when the Reaper backup arrived, giving them something to shoot at to distract them from the dread and how each passing second felt like precious air that Terra would be losing. Garrus was able to concentrate some of that dread into rage to reinforce his offense, blaming every Reaper that dared to pass his scope for putting them all through this chaos. He almost felt like he was back on Omega, taking out Terra's fate on every thug that crossed him, though this instance wasn't exactly as self-detrimental.

He and Terra had long since earned the chance to become each other's entire futures, to have the day when they would make the vow to. They were both going to live to see it, no matter what it took. He would make sure of that.

When the mech finally resurfaced and Terra scrambled out, he was somewhere between relieved and overjoyed. That instantly plummeted back down to terrified when she slumped to the ground, barely conscious, as the effects of oxygen deprivation seeped into her. To make matters worse, she was right in range of two Brutes, who instantly turned their sights on her for a killing blow. Garrus was about to furiously deny them that with an attack that…well, he wasn't really thinking it through enough to plan it out, so it was presumably meant to be something reckless, but he didn't even need to. Just before the Brute could rear back to strike, something gave it pause.

And it turned around to instead tackle its ally.

Tali was all but paralyzed by sheer confusion, but Garrus couldn't afford to be. He would question this strange occurrence later. Terra needed him _now_. He raced over without a thought, ducking away from the warring Brutes to dive down and take her into his arms. He practically carried her back to the shuttle while Tali did her best to cover them. They finally managed to race away from the crash site and back towards the _Normandy_, managing not to crash again or get shot down by a Reaper on the way.

The exact millisecond they were clear of danger, Garrus began running medical scans on his unconscious human, trying to figure out how to wake her. "Terra!" He pressed his talons to her pulse, finding it was weak and her flesh was cold. "She's freezing!"

Tali was about to respond, rushing to prepare her own medical systems, when Terra suddenly shocked awake, coughing up water and gasping for breath.

Garrus quickly shut down his omni-tool and took hold of her, helping her to an upright position to ease her lungs. "Are you OK?"

She took a few more seconds to steady herself before nodding. "…yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." She said it weakly, shivering and clutching an aching skull.

He finally drew her into his arms, as much for reassurance as for warmth. "_Never_ do that again!"

She might've come up with some witty response, but she settled for burying herself in him. That was all either of them needed.

Terra had been back on her ship for all of four seconds before Chakwas rushed her into the med bay to be treated for hypothermia. Terra spent the entire time complaining about this even as she continued shivering and coughing and not complaining about how Garrus was staying close enough to warm and steady her. After she had been tended to by the doctor and worried over by everyone else, she explained what she had found down there.

Not a Reaper. One of the creatures that made them. She told the tale of a race that commanded the entire galaxy (the way she glanced at Javik while she said this did not go unnoticed), that watched its subordinates fall to synthetics and crafted a device to protect them, that succumbed to its own creation when Harbinger was born. A select few Leviathans had been able to retreat to the depths they had now been found in—the darkness that had been breached—and Terra had managed to talk them into fighting so that the Reapers would pay for all they'd done. The fact that these beings had watched the entire cycle from its beginning and agreed that this one had earned that chance was certainly a good sign.

They hoped.

"What does it matter?" Javik shook his head, "The Leviathans still fell to their own foolishness. The Reapers are still an enemy to be destroyed."

"It matters," Garrus asserted as he took Terra's side and unknowingly said exactly what she was thinking, "Sovereign said they were eternal. But this proves they had a beginning. …so maybe now, we can provide them with an end."

"Indeed," EDI agreed, "The Reapers were unsuccessful in completely eradicating their creators. This proves that they are fallible, even on long term scales." She seemed to smirk as she reached her conclusion: "We can exploit this."

Liara nodded. "I'll start figuring out how best to utilize what we recovered. In the meantime, we should probably let Terra recuperate."

Solana scoffed from the cot opposite Terra's even as the squad cleared out of the med bay. "Isn't that what my brother's for?"

Garrus gave her a look even though she was lying down and couldn't see it. Apparently, it hadn't escaped her notice that he'd been in and out of the AI core a lot the past few days and had been retreating to the captain's cabin rather than the battery after every visit.

Terra quickly drew his attention. "Maybe, since I'm already treated, I could 'recuperate' faster in my own bed?"

Garrus caught her meaning, ignoring Solana's responding smirk in favor of delivering on of his own. "And you really shouldn't be on your own right now."

"Guess you're stuck with me then."

"Guess I am." He carefully helped her to her feet and up to deck 1, not even minding the barely concealed snickering coming from his sister's cot.

Terra hadn't been making an excuse for time alone when she said she wanted her own bed (…OK, well, she hadn't _just_ been doing that…), she did feel a lot better when she was in the familiar confines of her cabin. Though she usually calmed down by lying on her bed and watching the fish tank, which was not exactly the most soothing sight right now considering what she'd just been through. One glance at the luminescent water set her shivering again.

As always, Garrus noticed. "I take it you're never going swimming again."

She scoffed. "I wasn't exactly big on it in the first place."

"Oh, good, 'cause I couldn't possibly go with you."

"Palaven has oceans, too. You're telling me no turians ever go swimming in them?"

"We're not exactly built for it like you are. There's a lot of flailing and splashing involved…interrupted by occasional bouts of drowning."

She shrugged. "Then I suppose it's a good thing we prefer to sit at the edge and watch."

He smiled as her words called back the memory of sneaking onto the keeper walkways on the Presidium reservoir, of the day they accepted each other as mates. "So we do."

She took his hand, sighing. "I wish none of this had happened."

He never expected words like that from her. He gave her a stunned look, not sure what to say.

She shook her head. "I wish the Reapers never existed. I wish you and I could've just had a life together without some stupid war getting in the way."

He finally drew her in. "We will when this is over." He let one talon drift over to wrap around her hand where their engagement ring rested, a shining silver and sapphire promise.

She turned her hand to entwine her fingers with his. "…sometimes I wish the raid hadn't happened either. That I'd gotten the life I wanted on Mindoir."

"…sometimes I do, too."

She looked at him sullenly. "Do you stop for the same reason I do?"

He nodded. "Because nothing could be worse than the thought of never meeting you? Or living one more day of my life without you in it? Yeah."

"I'd still like to think it would've been possible. That we might still have found each other and fallen in love in some world where my whole family could've met you."

He smirked. "Well, then, why don't I play storyteller for once?"

She sighed. "Garrus, really—"

"Just lie down." He gently nudged her until she complied, lying down beside her close enough to lend her warmth as he held her hand tenderly. "I might not have gone to Mindoir that day if the raid didn't happen, but you're right, that shouldn't have to be the end of it. So while I go on as a sniper none the wiser, you go on as an artist. When you start to forge a path for yourself, instead of enlisting, you go off to see the galaxy on your own, painting every horizon and absorbing every culture without ever losing contact with your family. Then one day, after I've finally caved and joined C-Sec, you come to the Presidium. I see you at work and have to come over to admire it. Once we've caught each other's eyes, we start stumbling into each other more and more and finally decide to spend some time together. Us being us, we realize we're a perfect match immediately but take another few years to realize we're outright perfect for each other. With no Reapers getting in the way, we get the romance we should've had." He smiled as he again ran his talon gently across the finger carrying their ring. "And so much more."

She found herself lost in the thought of it. It was a beautiful dream. But it was still only a dream. The second she remembered that, she felt the threat of tears come upon her. "I want that. All of it."

He drew her to turn to face him again. "You have it. What's happened can't take that from us." He reached up and threaded his talons through her hair to press her closer. "Nothing can."

She took that to heart, using it to push away the memory of that terrible, devastating-beyond-words-or-reason moment when Leviathan had her trapped and she was afraid she would never see her love again. In this moment, it was quite the opposite, as if they truly were inexplicably tied to where nothing could ever separate them. As if one could not exist without the other. "…I love you."

He didn't need to say it back, though he did. They both knew it. It was undeniable. He was her turian, after all, just as she was his human. Nothing could change that.

As they fell asleep in each other's arms that night, they dreamed of a world where they were free together. And of how it could one day be made real.


	73. To Stand at the Fall

Chapter 73: To Stand at the Fall

There must be balance  
There must be a challenger for every hero  
Defeat will come eventually  
Yet it will not ready the conquered to stand at the fall  
Nothing can prepare them for the end

It wasn't long before the _Normandy_ was needed again, but there was still a brief break in the action, something the entire crew was grateful for. Terra took that time to recuperate from the experience of almost drowning that she had immediately put on the list of things she would never do again as long as she lived (most people had a bucket list anyway, she just happened to have an anti-bucket list). This was a process that involved a lot of curling up with Garrus and only leaving the comfort of her bed to check in on the crew. By the time she could again look at her fish tank and enjoy the soothing sight of waters rather than shiver in darkened recollection, she had amassed a total of six different drawings in her sketchbook of moments she had shared with Garrus either in real life or in their fairytale timeline free of Reapers. She was in the process of composing poems to match each one when EDI contacted her. Adopted turian that she was, she was ready for action at a moment's notice, but she was still relieved to hear that she was needed not for a mission but for Solana's next stage of treatment.

No sooner had Terra, Garrus, and Castis arrived in the med bay than Chakwas finished removing Solana's bandages and testing her bone. Turian resilience and a military-grade application of medi-gel seemed to have done the job and helped her recover faster. She was on her feet, albeit shakily, within minutes.

Terra immediately rushed over to properly hug her like she hadn't been able to do in nearly eight months.

Solana smiled as she reciprocated, though she was still favoring the leg that hadn't just been broken. "This is one human thing I kind of like."

"You'll have to show me that list, then," Terra prodded as she leaned back to give her adopted sister a playful nudge.

"It's good to see you back on your feet," Castis nodded to his daughter.

"Yeah, yeah," Solana shook her head, "I know you worry, Dad."

"Not to mention me," Garrus said as he came over to give her the turian approximation of a hug.

"You're one to talk," she scoffed, cutting off his gesture by less-than-playfully shoving him, "Always got to play the conquering hero."

"Terra's the one who nearly drowned!"

"Oh, please, she already died once, it didn't slow her down."

Garrus smirked. "Fair enough."

Solana then turned to Terra. "Speaking of which, what do you need me for?"

Terra's smile turned uncertain. "What do you mean?"

"Terra, think it through. I'm as turian as anyone else in this room. I am _not_ riding civilian on a military ship, Alliance or no."

Ah. Terra nodded. "Right. Don't worry, we'll find you something."

Solana nodded back. "Good. Let's show these rust buckets what the Vakarians can do."

Terra laughed to herself. She had been proud to call herself part of this family, something that would soon enough be made official. She would be ever prouder to follow through on Solana's words. With all three of them behind her, she knew she could do this. Without a doubt.

_"Commander," EDI suddenly came over the PA, "the asari Councilor has contacted us."_

Terra gave EDI's nearest console a confused look. "What did she want?"

_"She said it was too sensitive and asked that you meet her on the Citadel."_

"Then tell Joker to take us in as soon as he can."

"Really?" Solana scoffed as she started carefully checking her leg, "We're going to the Citadel again? I think at this point we'd see just as much of you had we stayed there as we're seeing now."

Terra smirked, rolling her eyes. She was used to Solana making jokes like that, especially since she found out Terra and Garrus were sharing a bedroom now. "Just make sure you're standing straight again when we get back."

Solana smirked back. "I'll do my best…sis."

The ship had been drifting back towards the Citadel over the past few days just in case they were needed or happened upon some random sign of trouble. It only took a couple hours to get there and dock. Terra headed straight for the embassies to meet the Councilor and hear of an artifact in an asari temple that might have information on the Catalyst. When she came back to the ship less than an hour later, she immediately set a course for Thessia. The asari home-world was only a relay or two away, a journey that ended before the day did.

They still weren't fast enough.

_"Commander!" Joker reported the second they entered the Parnitha system, "Thessia is under heavy Reaper attack!"_

Terra instantly went running for the bridge, peripherally noticing how Liara had just as quickly raced up from her office to the CIC to see if this was true. "Can you raise the scientists?" she asked Joker.

Naturally, the answer was no. "Reaper forces are surrounding the temple," Joker assessed, "No way you're getting in unnoticed."

"Then we're going in loud. Find us a drop-zone." She turned to head down to the armory, finding her path barred by her distraught asari friend.

"Terra, that's my home down there!" Liara said, "I'm coming with you!"

Terra wanted to say that it was probably best Liara stay behind. But then she thought of what she would want if it was Palaven, what she had wanted just from standing on Menae. Of Tali on Rannoch. She couldn't deny Liara that chance. "Grab your gear."

Terra, Liara, and Garrus were moving out in no time at all, the shuttle racing down to the surface. Liara watched the viewing screen as they came in range of the cities, her eyes filling with sorrow and horror as the image showed them the Reapers descending upon Thessia.

Terra knew this pain. She knew better than to try distracting Liara. "I'm sorry. I know what it's like."

Liara nodded sadly. "You do." She sighed. "This temple we're going to. My mother took me there once."

"You think she knew about this?"

"Maybe." She shook her head. "Terra, my people are dying down there…"

Garrus finally stepped up. "We're going to save everyone we can. Whoever we can't, we'll avenge."

Liara took a deep breath to steel herself. "Let's make sure of that."

They touched down in an outpost the asari military had set up. They'd been there all of ten seconds before a Reaper attack managed to destroy the barrier holding off the Husks. They quickly stepped up to clear the area so the asari could repair the wall, a task made monumentally easier by the asari's considerate inclusion of a turret in their defenses. Unfortunately, even after that, the asari were no more inclined to let them go through the barrier themselves.

"I'm sorry," their commanding officer said, "I'm calling my people back."

"No!" Liara immediately asserted, "Lieutenant, if we don't make it to that temple, this is the last you'll ever see of Thessia!"

That silenced any argument. No asari present—for that matter, not even Terra or Garrus—could bear to look out on that fractured skyline and know that the Reapers could never let it heal. This was the home of a beautiful, advanced race. If it fell, the hope of all asari fell with it. So the lieutenant knew she had to act. "You really think you can win this war?"

Terra nodded. "The last piece of the solution is in that temple. We get there and the Reapers are already dead."

"…I hope you're right." She signaled ahead to let the other outposts know they had a friendly Alliance squad coming through and then turned to open the barrier. "Let's make sure the galaxy knows the war was won on Thessia!" she told her troops as Terra, Garrus, and Liara walked onto the bridge. Then she turned to them. "Good luck, commander."

Terra couldn't help but think they would need some. The Reapers were either onto them or employing the same relentless assault tactic that had taken Palaven, because every single step they took was met by another husk. For a while, Liara was only fighting harder, getting angrier every time they saw asari soldiers falling or Banshees emerging from enemy lines. Every time there was a break in the action, however, no matter how small, she was shaking and her breathing shuddered, that sorrow and horror returning even stronger to think that her world was falling and her people were being harvested and turned against them. Terra and Garrus both took the time to tell her this would be over soon, that they were going to fix this, but she only seemed to take the words to heart when the shooting began again. They all fought with a vengeance to get through the war-torn path to the temple. Terra only let her anger reach a peak when they finally got there and received some air support only for the Reapers to shoot down both gunships with their own air support. She told Garrus and Liara to stay down and tore into the Harvesters viciously. She wasn't letting anything stop them now.

So when they came into the temple and found it empty, she didn't even know how to feel.

Garrus was the one who found the bodies. "Terra!" He called them over, showing them that two asari corpses were lying there in a pool of iridescent purple blood.

Terra groaned miserably. "I'm guessing that's the scientists. No wonder there was no answer."

But Garrus' detective side was out in an instant. He knelt down to inspect the bodies. "Wait. Take a look at their throats."

Liara looked. "They've been slit. The Reaper's didn't do this."

Terra looked around carefully. "No sign of anyone here who did do it. And the artifact we're looking for could be anything in the room." After glancing at each of the items in question, her eyes fell on the statue at the forefront of the temple. Now wasn't the best time for sating curiosity, considering they were on a time limit, but she felt like this question was important. "Who is this?"

"The goddess Athame," Liara answered, "We used to believe there were gods separate from our world looking down on us…"

But as Liara explained, Terra stepped closer. Every step seemed to drown out Liara's word with something else, something eerily familiar. She finally closed her eyes and listened carefully. Whispers in a language too foreign to recognize yet still understandable, a pull she knew…all too well. She gasped as she realized what was happening and pushed away the feeling, whirling around to proclaim to Garrus and Liara that "There's a Prothean beacon here!"

Liara's reaction went beyond shock. "What?! You're sure?!"

"It's not the kind of thing you forget."

"But…no, that's not possible! My people wouldn't just hide something like this!"

"Actually, they could've," Garrus put the pieces together, "A few sudden breakthroughs every couple centuries and the asari would leap ahead of the rest of us until they were running the galaxy…which you pretty much do."

"No! There has to be another explanation!"

"Liara," Terra stepped up, "even if you're right and they didn't know about this—which is unlikely considering this is clearly what the Councilor sent us here for—they still had to know there was something worth protecting here that was worth study, which means they had information that might have prevented all this if they'd just thought to dig deeper or let someone else in on it!"

Liara saw her point, which unfortunately only made the hurt grow worse. "…but we can still fix it." She hurried over to examine the statue for herself, connecting to the scientists' databanks to look for clues. "It talks about some kind of pattern for activating it, reconstructing matrices…none of which I see here."

Terra returned to glancing around, suddenly seeing the Prothean touch in every artifact present, and noticed something strange. It took a moment for her to catch it, but there was definitely a green glow coming from a carving off to the side, the same kind a beacon gave off. "Maybe that's the point." She stepped over to the carving, one hand against the glass causing that glow to light up and connect to the statue.

This much Liara could see. She stepped back to gaze at the beam in astonishment. "By the goddess…literally!"

Terra hurried to examine the rest of the artifacts in the room. "There must be more here. I think I can find them."

"This is incredible. The beacon seems to think you're Prothean. It must be the Cipher."

"I sure have gotten a lot of use out of that thing, huh?" she scoffed as she carefully examined a statue and activated the connection behind it. It only took a few seconds of poking around the Prothean artwork (even their art was military-based and imperialistic, which she was definitely going to give Javik a hard time about) to find the last two connections and start up the beacon.

They were all expecting it carried another message. They were not expecting a VI to come to life in the middle of the room and tell them they were past all hope.

Terra was not going to stand for that. "We can stop this. Our entire galaxy is uniting right now. The Reapers are only making us stronger by giving us a reason to, no matter how much they try to turn us against each other. They're not going to stop me and they _can't_ stop all of us. If you give us the Catalyst, we'll make sure of it."

The VI seemed to realize just as quickly as an organic that it was best not to get in Commander Shepard's way. "Very well. I will sync with the Crucible to—" Suddenly, it froze. "Indoctrinated presence detected. Shutting down."

Terra didn't have a chance to ask what it meant before her answer made itself known. In the form of a certain Cerberus operative arriving at the entrance. "_You_." She had never said that word with quite so much hatred. It wasn't like her. Yet she meant it all the same, drawing her gun and taking aim on Kai Leng as Liara and Garrus followed suit. "You killed the scientists. What do you want?"

"Your attention," the swordsman sneered. He then proceeded to toss out a portable holo-COMM and activate it.

Letting the Illusive Man enter the conversation. _"Shepard."_

Terra eyed him with sheer disdain. "How did you find this place?"

_"The Archives. Or did your Shadow Broker miss that one?"_

Liara instantly reflected Terra's scorn. "Show yourself. I promise I won't miss."

_"Stick to your talents, doctor," the Illusive Man scoffed, literally going through Terra to look covetously on the VI, "You've unlocked the key to subjugating the Reapers."_

"Or destroying them," Terra retorted sharply.

_He instantly turned to glare at her. "Shepard, destroying the Reapers gains us nothing!"_

"Look outside! You're saying we have nothing to gain from stopping that?!"

_"They just want to control us! Think about it! If they really wanted us dead, they could do it. There'd be nothing left."_

"That didn't stop them from wiping out the Protheans. Or any of the cycles before them. Why should you think we're so special?"

_"I know how they think. And they have it right. Why kill what you can dominate?"_

In all her years, Terra had never thought she could despise someone so much. But that was sort of undermined when she saw the true meaning behind his words. "Do you even hear yourself? You're _indoctrinated_! You're doing exactly what they want!"

_"No! I—"_

"Stop trying to explain yourself! I never agreed with you, but there was always some part of you that knew what had to be done. That's why you went after the Collectors. But now? …Cerberus was supposed to be humanity's sword, not a dagger in our back."

_He shook his head. "Poetic as always. But still not enough." He turned back to his operative. "Kai Leng, the commander has something I need. Please relieve her of it."_

There wasn't even time after the holo-COMM disconnected for the swordsman to say "Understood" before Garrus opened fire. The shot was deflected all too easily, but that just made the turian sniper angrier. "Touch her and I'll _relieve_ you of a lot more!"

Terra appreciated her mate's defensiveness of her, but that didn't change the fact that Kai Leng jumped right in to go for all three of them at once. It was a simple matter to sidestep his first lunges and overload his shields, but he immediately followed that by ducking back to the front of the temple and calling in backup. Terra, Garrus, and Liara all had to duck down as a gunship flew in and opened fire on them.

This actually happened three times. Terra was detecting a pattern and wondering how this guy beat Thane in the first place. Still, most of her focus was on attempting to pin Leng down and making sure Garrus didn't suffer the same gunship-related fate twice. The slippery ninja-wannabe jerk wasn't that easy to corner, which only served to make her angrier.

He seemed to notice she was aiming for a stalemate she would eventually find the upper hand in. So he decided to stop tilting the odds and outright cheat. When Liara attempted to go in close for a kill shot, she knocked her back with biotic force, sending her tumbling right into Garrus. Then, when Terra attempted to retaliate, he held off her fire with a shield and turned on his COMM. "Target the supports."

Terra realized two seconds two late what that meant. She just barely managed to dive out of the way when the gunship flew back in and sent rockets flying into the pillars around the room. The temple immediately lost its foundation and began to collapse. Within seconds, Terra was struggling to find a handhold as the floor gave way beneath her. She managed to grab onto a slab of flooring that was still connected but dangling precariously over the abyss, fighting her way back to the top. She had just barely found her way back to the floor when the slab she was climbing up came loose and fell. She was clinging to the edge by her fingertips, something even cybernetics struggled to keep hold of. She started scrambling to jump back up before she slid off, but without something to kick off of, she started slipping—

Just as she was about to lose her grip, familiar talons wrapped around her wrist. "Terra! Hang on!" Garrus grabbed hold of her arm and started struggling to pull her back up. Liara was right behind him, taking Terra's other hand until the two of them together could lift her.

Terra took all of two seconds back on solid ground to catch her breath before she noticed Kai Leng was nowhere to be found. The gunship was right outside, preparing to take off. She moved fast, diving to take her pistol back in hand and race after them. She only got in enough shots to take its shields down before it flew out of sight.

_"This is Lieutenant Kurin!" her COMM sparked to life, "My squad is trapped! Is anyone on this frequency?"_

Terra quickly stowed her pistol and answered. "This is Shepard. What's your location?"

_"Repeat: is anyone on this frequency?"_

"We read you! Give me your l—!"

_"The lieutenant's down! Has anyone seen Shepard? Did they make it to the temple? Wait… I'VE GOT A REAPER INBOUND!"_

Just like that, Terra was watching a world end. The Reaper came down, that dark, imposing howl resounding through the atmosphere around it. The COMMs descended into static and barely audible cries of anguish. The fractured skyline darkened. Or perhaps that was her.

Liara stepped up to attempt placing a comforting hand on her shoulder, but she withdrew, moving back into the temple to turn her back on the scenes in the distance. That wasn't enough to put it from her mind as the rage started to fill her. She turned to start kicking and screaming and throwing everything she could get her hands on. It probably wasn't the best thing to do with the remains of the temple barely holding together under their feet, it didn't even make her feel better, but what else could she do?

Garrus watched her carefully, letting her vent the worst of it on her own. He considered going over to comfort Liara in the meantime, only to find the asari still watching her world fall apart as she fell to her knees in despair. He sighed helplessly, turning to his COMM. "Cortez. Get us out of here." As the shuttle locked onto their signal and came around to pick them up, he turned to his human. She had finally stopped tearing the room apart and slumped down to the floor to curl up on herself. He'd never seen her cry out of _anger_ as much as out of misery. He didn't like it. It wasn't like her. None of this was fair. He finally crawled over to take her side, silently supporting her as the weight of defeat thickened the air around them.

When the shuttle came around, they all forced themselves to get back on their feet. Garrus immediately doubled over, revealing that some of the debris from the collapse had struck him in a weakened area of his armor and cut through part of his carapace. Terra wordlessly wrapped his arm around her and supported him as they limped onto the shuttle. Not a word was said as the three of them waited to return to the _Normandy_. There was nothing any of them could say.

Solana met them in the cargo bay. Her uncannily lively demeanor in the face of her recent recovery seemed rather unprecedented after what they'd just seen, but she was none the wiser to that. "Good to see you back already. Any thoughts on—?"

Terra practically pushed her aside as she walked past to toss her armor aside. "Not now. Just get Garrus to the med bay."

Solana gave her adopted sister a wary glance. She knew something was wrong when Liara walked right past her, not looking her way for fear of revealing the tears in her eyes, and headed straight up to the war room. She devoted all her attention to Garrus when he stumbled out of the shuttle, helping him keep a stable footing as he clutched his wound on the way to the elevator. "What happened?"

Garrus sighed sadly. "…we lost Thessia."

Solana could count on one hand the times in her life she'd been rendered speechless (and that was one three-fingered hand). "Spirits…" The thought that another home-world had fallen, the one from which galactic culture had practically been born…it was unthinkable. As she helped her brother off to see Chakwas, she wondered how they were going to bounce back from this.

Terra was wondering that herself. After she had finished placing her gear back in her locker, EDI informed her the asari Councilor was attempting to contact them again. She made her way to the COMM room in a haze, every step haunted by the final moments of the disastrous mission they'd just come back from. Even when she made it to the COMM room, she hesitated to answer, leaning against the door frame in pensive, regretful silence until she finally realized the hesitation wasn't making the problem go away and stepped up to answer.

_"Commander," the Councilor said, "we've lost contact with Thessia. Did you make it to the temple?"_

Terra sighed. "I'm sorry, Councilor, we…we didn't get the information. Cerberus got there first. The Reapers, too."

_The Councilor was plainly distraught by the news. "I…I don't know what to say. What was the situation on Thessia?"_

"Deteriorating fast. The Reapers are there in strength."

_"Then I need to go. There are measures to be taken, continuity of civilization to consider. I never dreamed this day would come."_

"None of us did. I'm—"

The line disconnected.

"…sorry."

After that, though, and after seeing Liara still broken up over what had happened, Terra found her grief again giving way to anger. Cerberus was going down. She quickly gathered the squad (except Garrus, whose injuries were still being treated) and started planning how to track down Kai Leng. As it happened, Traynor had already done so, tracking Leng's transport through the relay network to the Iera system, where all communications were apparently being blocked. Terra, after giving Traynor due commendation for this, immediately had Joker set a course for the Shadow Sea cluster. Cerberus wasn't getting away this time.

The journey would take almost a whole day (how Kai Leng had gotten almost completely there so quickly, she did not want to know), so Terra took this chance to check in on Garrus. He was already recovering, with the assistance of medi-gel, when she came into the med bay. He didn't say anything. He simply moved over in his cot to make room for her, wrapping his arm around her when she slid into place beside him. They sat there, both attempting to slowly heal, as the events of the day faded into painful memories.

The war wasn't over yet, but they both wished it would be. …in a way, it felt like it already was.


	74. Sanctuaries

Chapter 74: Sanctuaries

In times of hardship and pain  
At times we wander and roam  
In times of darkness and hurt  
Our only sanctuary is home

The clatter of things being biotic-thrown and the sound of angry shouts could be heard from two decks away. The last time Terra had heard anything like that coming from the engineering deck was when Grunt was first coming to grips with his blood rage, so she couldn't be blamed for running down there at top speed.

She might've guessed it was Javik being insensitive to an already upset Liara.

"You're wrong!" Liara was practically screaming at him, "We earned our place in the galaxy!"

"Admit it, asari!" Javik snapped back, "Your people stole knowledge from mine and passed it off as their own."

"I have a name! It's Liara T'Soni! I'd appreciate you _using it_ from now on!" She said this so forcefully that the blue glow of her biotics sparked to life all around her.

Terra quickly raced in to pull her friend back before she did something they'd all regret. "Enough!" Once Liara was restrained, she turned to Javik. "If I were you, I'd apologize _now_!"

Javik scoffed. "For telling the truth?"

"For not doing more!" Liara snapped, "The Protheans were supposed to have all the answers! Why didn't you do something to _stop this_?!"

Before Terra could work up the patience to tell Liara that wasn't exactly fair, Javik resignedly stated "We had hoped you would."

Confused, Liara released her tension, letting her biotics fade.

"Even in my time, we saw potential in your people. So you were…guided, when necessary."

"…and it wasn't enough."

Javik looked at her in a way that couldn't be described as warm but seemed to come as close as a Prothean could. "Despair is the enemy's greatest weapon. Do not let them wield it…Liara T'Soni."

Liara gave him a look that was almost grateful before nodding to Terra and leaving the room.

Once it was just the two of them, Terra turned to Javik. "Was that true?"

Javik gave her a curious look. "Does it matter?"

Terra did her best not to glare at him. "Liara is one of my best friends. I think it matters."

"Then I will tell you what you want to hear. I said the truth."

That wasn't an answer, but Terra could tell pressing him wouldn't change it. Since it was clear Liara needed her more than she needed to hear more from the Prothean, she left the room and headed back up to the crew deck. She wasn't alone in her thinking, apparently, since Tali was already there worrying about her, clearly not sure what she would say if she'd gone in to talk to the asari. Terra could understand the hesitation, since Tali had just regained her home-world where Liara had lost hers, and promised she would take the front for this one, heading straight into Liara's room.

Liara was sprawled on her bed, trying her hardest not to weep as she looked down at images of how Thessia used to be. "Is this what it felt like? Looking down from Menae?"

Terra nodded sadly. "Yeah."

"I should've known. Somewhere, someone knew about that beacon, and I—"

"Liara, you _can't_ blame yourself. This wasn't your fault."

"Wasn't it?! I told those people on Thessia we'd save them! How many asari died because _I_ asked for their help?"

Terra quickly leaned over and faced Liara down. "None."

Liara looked at her. "Terra, that isn't true."

"Isn't it? You've been trying to warn your people for three years. It's not your fault they weren't ready. You did everything you could. And it isn't over. Not as long as there's one asari left standing who remembers Thessia." She reached into her pack and pulled out her sketchbook, flipping back to a drawing she'd made almost 16 years ago now of the Thessia horizon. "Not as long as you can rebuild. …not as long as you don't give up."

Liara took comfort in the image as much as in her commander's words. She finally nodded and pulled herself to her feet. "Helping the refugees. That's something I can do."

Terra nodded as she paced her sketchbook back in her pack. "Good. And you?"

"…I need some time. But I'll be fine. Thank you."

Terra gave her friend a small smile before turning to leave the room.

Liara turned to her console and set to work. She'd been at it for less than two minutes before she heard her door open again. She sighed. "Terra, I told you, I just need some time—" She then turned to see who had walked in. She froze, utterly stunned. "Violet?"

Violet stood there, minding her distance as she entered the room enough for the door to close behind her. "I heard what happened."

Liara sighed. "Your sister already talked to me."

"I know. I saw her leave." She sighed sympathetically. "I know what it's like. I wouldn't want to talk either."

Liara gave her a curious look. "Then why are you here?"

Violet answered by sitting down and holding out her flute. Before Liara could tell her it wasn't necessary, she started playing.

Liara almost started crying again. It was an asari tune. She'd heard it before, but it had never sounded so beautiful. Whether that was because of the light recent events had shed on it or because of Violet's skillful melody on an instrument the song hadn't even been composed for, it struck her. Her eyes met Violet's briefly between notes, just long enough for her to give a grateful, touched look, then they both turned to their work with the song their only communication.

Terra could hear her sister playing from the other room. She smiled to herself before heading into the battery. It made things seem a little less upside-down to find Garrus at his station. But she started losing that sense of rightness when she noticed how he was sulking against the console on the wall. "What's wrong?"

He didn't even look at her. He waited until she stepped closer, letting the door close behind her, before taking a deep breath to steel himself and tell her the last thing he ever wanted to say to her: "The fleet's falling back from Palaven."

She recoiled as if the words were a punch in the gut. "…what?"

"The Primarch called me. Our forces were being decimated. The evacuations already made it past—all the ones that were ever going to, anyway—so I advised him to…to cease all offensive operations against the Reapers."

She felt like everything was unraveling around her. It was only because Garrus was clearly just as distraught as she was that she didn't lose it right in front of him and instead sat down to withstand the force of the news. "There was…there was no other way?"

He sighed, sitting down beside her. "If there was, I couldn't see it. And now, if I'm wrong, we lose Palaven…and all the turian families that were left behind won't be as lucky as ours."

This couldn't be happening. Palaven, the heart of turian civilization, lost? Another home falling to invaders? After all they had done to save it? She'd let herself get her hopes up that with the krogan helping, they could fix this. But now… "…I failed."

Garrus immediately turned to her. "Terra, _no_. This one is on me—"

"No! _I'm_ supposed to be the one uniting the galaxy so that things like this _don't happen_! First Thessia, now this?! What's next?! Anderson fails and we lose Earth forever?!"

He finally took her by the shoulders and forced her to face him. "_Terra_! It's war. Things like this happen. It doesn't mean it's too late. And it especially doesn't make it your fault."

She shook her head. "Tell that to Kaidan, Mordin, Thane, and Legion."

"That's different. They chose it. They knew what they were doing. They gave their lives to help us win this. They wouldn't want you to fall apart before it was over. We still need you."

"What good am I to any of them when I can't even stop Cerberus?"

"You will. And I'll be right there with you when you do."

She would usually have taken comfort in that thought. But right now, she was so overcome with the devastation of genuinely losing her home that she couldn't avoid the fears invading her mind. "What if it comes down to it again?"

He gave her a confused look. "Down to what?"

"Down to the ruthless calculus of war. What if I have to make some impossible choice, lose everything just to win this?"

Now Garrus thought about it, he realized he'd been dreading the same thing. In a way, that's what he'd done when he advised the retreat. But it also wasn't the first time he'd thought of facing a lose-lose decision. He smirked as he remembered his answer for it. "I'm sure you'll do what I usually try." He took her hand. "Find a way out of making it."

She smiled for a split second. It was nice to know he had such confidence in her cleverness, but she didn't know if she'd be able to live up to it. She didn't know what she was going to do. Looking down at the hand tight in his grip, her eyes drifted to the finger on her left hand that now carried a silver ring with a sapphire bird on it, a metal and jewel symbol of her bond to him and the promise they'd made for after this was all over. "…just promise you'll still be waiting on the other side of it."

He leaned closer to her, drawing her to lay her head on his shoulder so he could nuzzle softly against her. "Always."

For a few precious moments, she could let her sorrows fade away beneath the contentment that was being held by her love as his talons sifted through the hair draped over her left shoulder and his voice whispered turian words meant only for a mate. It was her solace in the chaos and storms of this galaxy-shaking war, a prelude to what she hoped would be the epilogue awaiting them after it all. No, not hoped. Hoped implied there was a chance she would ever let them lose that perfect future. She _knew_. No matter how this ended, they'd find a way. They'd always be together. At least if she had anything to say about it.

_"Commander," EDI came over the PA, "we're approaching Horizon."_

Terra was hesitant to leave Garrus' arms now. But she couldn't deny the seething fury beneath her layers of emotion, slowly rising with the need to tear Kai Leng to shreds. She finally stood, determination in her eyes as she started to head down to the armory. "Let's finish this."

Garrus was right behind her as always. Cerberus wasn't responsible for Palaven's fall, but they would pay for Thessia's. If nothing else, they'd be the perfect vector on which to vent his helpless rage. "Oh, we will."

Terra didn't even need to call for a third squad-mate. Tali met them in the armory, already preparing to move out. It occurred to Terra that Tali was probably her first choice to call anyway, since it had long ago been proven that the two of them and Garrus were the perfect team. They flew down to Sanctuary, ready for anything.

Well, that was what they thought, at least.

"Commander!" Cortez called as they started their approach, "There's a message coming in."

_"This is Oriana Lawson. Stay away from Sanctuary! It's not what it seems!"_

Terra wasn't sure how to take the message itself, but the name was what stuck with her. "Oriana? That's Miranda's sister. If she's here, Miranda can't be far behind."

"We might even be able to catch up to her if we move fast," Garrus commented as they opened the door to drop in.

"Then we'd better move fast." So Terra hopped down, Garrus and Tali just behind her, and led them towards the entrance. They'd been moving all of ten seconds before their COMMs shut off. "Uh…what just happened?"

"There's some kind of jamming system in place," Tali noted, "That must be why the facility isn't sending or responding to any signals."

"I don't think that's a good sign." As always, her instincts were proven right almost immediately when a shuttle attempting to leave the grounds was shot down by…

"A HARVESTER?!" Tali jumped, drawing her shotgun even as the creature flew off.

"_Definitely_ not a good sign!" Terra announced. Just as immediately, Cerberus noticed them. A string of Phantoms and Nemeses came out to block their path. It wasn't a simple matter to take them down, but take them down they did.

Garrus' detective side was at work again, trying to put the pieces together. "This doesn't make sense. Cerberus clearly had this place on lockdown, and now the Reapers are chasing them out?"

Terra sighed, shaking her head as they approached the main door. "About time they started killing each other, if you ask me."

The lobby wasn't exactly a welcome sight. It was completely barren, even trashed in some places. When they made their way downstairs, they found a site of at least three different shuttle crashes, none of which seemed to have had any survivors. They turned a corner to find a few Cerberus troopers, easily removed, surrounded by casualties from both Cerberus and the Reapers. When they finally found a door into the facility itself, the first thing they found was a console carrying a video message.

From Miranda. _"This is Miranda Lawson. If you've made it this far, you're either desperate or stupid. Whatever the case, listen to me. Stay away from Sanctuary. This isn't a refugee camp. It's a Cerberus facility run by my father, Henry Lawson."_

Terra wasn't sure what to think anymore. "OK, so we've got Cerberus, Reapers, and now Miranda's crazy father? Any ideas?"

Garrus, for once, backed off. "I got nothing."

Tali sighed, unnerved. "This is going to be bad, isn't it?"

It was. They made their way down into a security checkpoint and managed to find footage of what had happened. Cerberus had crossed a lot of lines, but this…

"Those are the refugees, aren't they?" Garrus observed, "They're just rounding them up and killing them?!"

But Terra realized what it was. "…worse." She fast-forwarded to the grim ending: "They're being turned into Husks!"

Sure enough, the facility beyond was overrun. This whole place made Terra sick—abusing the promise of refuge for those with nowhere left to go just to force on them the same fate they'd narrowly escaped—and she was determined to tear it down brick by brick if necessary. They fought their way in deeper and deeper, following Miranda's trail of breadcrumb vids until they were had a route through to the tower at the heart of the facility. They moved faster and more anxiously the deeper in they got, a desperation that was not helped when Miranda's last message ended with her being blindsided by Kai Leng himself. Terra didn't let them so much as slow down until they were at their destination, the sound of biotics and gunshots on the other side proving that Miranda was still putting up a fight. If the door wasn't automatic, she would've kicked it down to get to the other side.

All the same, her entrance was forceful enough that Miranda, hiding wounded behind a desk, took note of it. "Shepard!"

Unfortunately, that meant that Henry Lawson himself also had warning, immediately taking Oriana hostage and aiming a gun at Terra's head. "Commander Shepard."

"Spare me the pleasantries," Terra sneered, "Where's Kai Leng?"

"I don't know. Gone. He took the data and left us to die."

Just like Cerberus to turn its back on its own people. Still, if Kai Leng was already gone, that meant there wasn't a reason to risk rushing this anymore. "Miranda, are you OK?"

Miranda struggled back to her feet, too weak to actually give an affirmative answer.

"That's close enough!" Lawson snapped, "Both of you!"

"Shepard…" Miranda pleaded, "…don't let him take her."

Terra had no intention of that. She had seen months ago that Oriana was Miranda's Violet. She wasn't letting a crewmate lose the last of her family. "This doesn't have to go that way. I just want Oriana."

"You want a lot," Lawson sneered.

"Would you rather I shoot you now?" She could do it. She didn't have a clear shot, but she could risk a ricochet or draw attention to give Garrus or Tali a line of fire. It was dicey, sure, but she could do it. And he knew that.

So he relented. "Alright, take her." He pushed Oriana aside, still holding the gun at the ready. "But I want out alive. Deal?"

Terra didn't get a chance to respond before Miranda fired up her biotics and threw everything she had at him, sending him tumbling through the window and down the tower to his death. "…no deal."

Terra quickly stowed her gun and raced over to help Miranda stay on her feet. "Are you alright?"

"I'll be fine," Miranda waved her off, stumbling over to help Oriana up, "Ori! Are you OK?"

"I'm OK," Oriana assured her.

Miranda sighed with relief, hugging her sister close. "It's over. We'll be alright. It's finally over."

Oriana nodded. "I wanna go home."

"We will." Miranda turned back to Terra, who was patiently waiting for the sisters to finish. "Give me a minute, OK?" After Oriana had agreed and stepped back, she went over to Terra. "It's a good thing you were here, Shepard. With perfect timing, as usual."

"I don't know," Terra shook her head, "I think I should've gotten here a few minutes earlier. Miranda, why didn't you call me? We could've gone in together. Who would be taking care of Oriana if something had happened to you?!"

"I had to risk it. Would you have done less for your sister?"

"…no." She sighed, realizing that Miranda was right and she really wouldn't have been thinking any clearer had it been Violet in danger. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It worked out." She glanced at the shattered window. "I'm glad he's gone. I'm sorry if that sounds cold."

"No, this one I think I can understand. But you should get out of here, take Oriana somewhere safe."

"I will. And then I think it's time I give you a hand."

"You don't have to—"

"She's not any safer from the Reapers than she would've been from Cerberus. I have to."

Terra nodded. "Alright. Just get some medical attention first?"

Miranda winced as she cradled her injury. "Right."

With that settled, Terra turned to Garrus and Tali, finding them sifting through a console. "Got anything?"

"Not much," Tali answered, "but there's records of shuttles going in and out. Cerberus included."

"Take it. EDI can—"

"I can do better," Miranda stepped back in, handing her a device, "Before Kai Leng escaped, I planted a tracking device on him. Have EDI cross-reference his coordinates and it'll take you right to the Illusive Man."

Terra smiled. "Miranda, that's…exactly what we need. You really do think of everything."

Miranda shrugged. "Not everything. But nobody's perfect."

Under different circumstances, Terra probably would've laughed. Right now, they had bigger things to worry about. "You can follow us out. We'll find you a safe transport." As Miranda went over to help Oriana out, Terra turned to Garrus. "We need to make sure everyone knows about this place."

Garrus nodded, pressing few buttons to disable the jammers and then transmitting Miranda's warning message to every COMM buoy that was still active.

Terra, with apologies to Traynor, made a mental note not to come to Horizon again.

EDI was able to make use of the tracking signal. She promised she'd have a location for them to hit soon enough and that Hackett was already taking measures to ensure the fleets and the Crucible would be ready for the final assault (striking at Cerberus, he claimed, would be the last step before they had to devote everything to taking down the Reapers, so they had to be prepared). In the meantime, all they could do was keep an eye on the scanners for any signs of danger and wait.

Which was what gave Terra the idea to talk to Solana. She found her adopted sister on the way out of the mess. "Sol, can we talk?"

Solana sighed. "Terra, I heard what happened down there. I understand if you—"

"Not about that." Terra pulled her aside. "I found you something. I think you can help EDI and Traynor with the scanners."

Solana gave her a curious look. "What makes you think that?"

Terra smirked, whispering the explanation. "You found the Karahven Falls in the middle of a _Palaven forest_. You've got keen eyes, a good sense of direction, and a better sense of danger. And you might not be Garrus' level with the tech stuff, but you're not exactly as clueless with it as I am. You'll be fine." She shrugged. "Though I wish we'd had you there before the war was almost over."

"Which is either wishful thinking or just a minor issue. I can do it, if nobody minds."

"Your dad's already going through top clearance war data for us and nobody's complained, so I don't think anyone's gonna care if you spend some time at the navigation terminal."

Solana nodded. "Right. And…about Sanctuary?"

Terra tensed at the word now. "What Cerberus did there…" She shook her head, just barely keeping from clenching her fists so hard that her nails cut into her palm. "They're going to pay."

"I don't doubt it. In the meantime, you might make sure everyone else is taking it as well as you are."

"I wouldn't call what's going through my head right now 'taking it well.'"

"…I've seen you worse, Terra."

Terra wasn't sure she agreed with that either, but she didn't argue even as Solana turned to head up to the CIC and familiarize herself with her new station. She just followed through on Solana's advice and went around checking on her crew. Joker wasn't doing well, having heard that the colony his family was on was lost. EDI was better, coming to terms with the idea of being alive and independent and part of the crew. Traynor was rightly ticked that her home colony had been the site of another massacre. James was furious about what Cerberus had been doing and eager to take them out so they could focus on retaking Earth. Liara was shaken by the very idea of what they'd seen. Violet was quiet about the whole thing, finally saying that it was too much like her nightmares and she'd rather pretend it hadn't happened until such time as they fixed it. And Tali…well…suffice to say, she had seen fit to drown her sorrows and mask it as celebrating Miranda's victory, which ended with her practically collapsing so Terra and Ashley had to drag her down to her bunk on the engineering deck. Ashley elected to take a similar approach to Violet and not talk about what had happened until they were ready to punish the Illusive Man for it, heading back up to her station and waiting until her rifle was needed. That just left Javik.

She smirked when she walked into his foggy room and saw a blueprint she knew quite well on the console. "Looks familiar."

"I've been doing some research," Javik explained, "There was another _Normandy_ before this one. It was attacked…and you were killed."

Terra nodded. "I got better."

He didn't smirk like any of the others would. "You and I have something in common. We were not allowed to rest until the Reapers were defeated."

"I'd like to think it's not that cut and dry. You're here to fulfill your purpose, take vengeance, correct what your people couldn't save. I'm here to prevent that from happening to my people. All of them."

"Yes. Your crew, your family, your turian…is that why you fight? For their affection?"

"We have each other regardless. I fight to keep it that way. I fight not to lose them. If I did…I wouldn't have anything in my life but death."

He watched her. "I see."

She wasn't sure how to take this. She finally saw fit to change the subject, turning to take note of the one possession of his they had found on Eden Prime. "You never told us what this is."

He glanced at it as briefly as he could. "It's called the Echo Shard. It carries memories."

"Memories of your cycle?"

"Yes."

"Why haven't you used it?"

He faced her firmly. "Imagine you had lost everyone you knew. You couldn't remember their names or their faces or even the color of the sky above your home-world. But you also couldn't remember the pain. Is that not a trade you would make?"

The very insinuation hurt her. "Not on my life. Never seeing Palaven or Mindoir or Earth…it's bad enough without not having the sight of their skies to hold onto. I'll never see my parents or my brother or Garrus' mom or my lost crewmen again, but I'd rather take the pain than never have known them. Even if the memories and the pain go hand in hand…taking neither leaves you hollow. That's no way to live, Javik."

He kept his eyes on her, silent and thoughtful. Finally, he stepped past her and took the Echo Shard in hand. He told her what he was seeing, looking back on icy horizons and star-filled skies. He was struck by horror when the memories came to the Reapers' arrival.

Terra acted on instinct, knocking the Shard from his hands. "Are you OK?"

He gasped for breath. "I once commanded a ship like this one. I lost it in an assault. My entire crew was captured and indoctrinated, sent to kill me. …so I cornered them and slit their throats. I watched them bleed out just to be sure."

She had heard a lot of terrible things in her time. This was one of the worst. "That's…I didn't…"

He merely turned away from her, retaking his place by the console. "I wish to be left alone."

She consented, leaving the room without another word. As she made her way to the elevator, the story stayed with her. With every passing second, it sunk in and her thoughts turned unbidden to the thought of history repeating itself, to her rivalry with Harbinger branding the _Normandy_ a target and her crew being turned against her until she had to…had to—

She didn't realize she was running across the crew deck until she was already pounding on the button to open the battery doors.

Garrus quickly noticed, the sound of her frantic entry drawing him to face her with concern. "Terra, what's—?"

She didn't even let him finish the question before she'd thrown herself at him, kissing him like she couldn't breathe without him and hoping it would drive the nightmare away.

He went along with it for a few seconds before he realized how she was shaking and pushed her away. "Terra, what's going on?"

She didn't want to even say it out loud, as if she was afraid it would be tempting fate to admit she harbored the fear of the very possibility, but it was Garrus asking, so she brought herself to tell him what Javik had said and how it had affected her.

He felt the irrational desire to punch the stupid Prothean in the face until he suppressed it in favor of consoling his mate. Getting mad at Javik for something that, for once, wasn't even his fault wasn't going to help her. Being there for her would. "Terra, it's not going to happen. We're almost through this."

She nodded, but the horror vid in her head wasn't going away. "I just don't know what I'd do if it came down to that. I couldn't…"

"I know. And I know it's not exactly a comfort to hear, but you know none of us would ever be taken alive."

"So I don't worry about it because you'll all die before I get there? Yeah, thanks."

He rolled his eyes (as best any turian could, at least). "Alright, that does it. EDI! How's the scan going?"

_"We have it narrowed down to the Horsehead Nebula," EDI answered, "but Cerberus defenses are making it difficult to pinpoint the exact coordinates. Hackett also reports that the fleets will not be in position for at least another two days."_

"Found anything else for us?"

_"Hackett also suggested we take the _Normandy_ back to the Citadel for repairs before we commit to any sort of frontal assault."_

"Then we're taking a break. Get us back there."

Terra gave him a look. "We're not going on shore leave at the height of the war!"

"A war you're no good to like this," Garrus retorted, "We all need to take some time for ourselves or we'll go down too easy."

She knew better than to argue with him when he was this adamant about something. Especially when he was right and it was for her own good, whether she liked it or not. "Fine. But you're stuck with me while we're out."

He smirked. "That much I can deal with."


	75. Shore Leave

Chapter 75: Shore Leave

Silence is maddening  
Yet quiet is a solace  
Safe  
Soft  
Easily broken

Once they were actually docked, Terra had had enough time to accept the conclusion that she needed a break from the pressures of the war and the toll it was taking on her that had climaxed at Javik's horror story. She had to admit that she was still only human (well, adopted turian as well, but still) and there was only so much she could take. She was so tired of being slung between doubt and dread and grief and _rage_. Just a little quiet would do her good.

So when she received word that Anderson wanted to talk to her, she didn't hesitate, hurrying straight to the coordinates he'd sent so she could accept the call. She smiled when she saw his face on a vid-COMM. "Anderson."

_He smiled back. "Shepard. Good to see you holding up."_

"Best I can. Why did you need me to come here again?"

_"I want you to have it. Take it off my hands."_

Her eyes widened in amazement. "Are…are you serious?"

_"I am. Kahlee meant for us to settle down there. Thing is, though, the more I'm on Earth…the less I want to leave. And I want as few loose ends out there as possible. Like I said, you'd be doing me a favor."_

She looked around at the two-story apartment. When she saw the piano and the windows looking out at the neon horizon, she realized this place was a perfect fit for her, everything she missed from Mindoir and everything she'd come to want since she lost it. "This…this is too generous. I can't—"

_"Don't make me order you, Shepard."_

She laughed. "Alright. If you insist. So long as you promise to stay safe down there."

_He nodded. "Will do. Same to you. Anderson out."_

After he'd hung up, she looked around. She wasn't sure where to start, but she figured it was best to get familiar with the place if this was where she'd be spending her shore leave. She smiled with a plan when her COMM beeped. "I hear you, Garrus."

_"Good. What did Anderson want and where did you run off to?"_

"Ping my COMM. …you're not gonna believe what just happened."

Garrus came in less than ten minutes later. As it turned out, he didn't believe what just happened. "Seriously? He _gave you_ this?!"

"I know, right?!"

He smirked as he started looking around. He couldn't help but eye the art on the walls skeptically. "I take it you'll be redecorating?"

She scoffed. "I fully intend to. I don't know who made that, but I'm pretty sure I can top it."

"Oh, I'm more than sure. If you can teach me how to do it at all, you can outdo anyone."

She smiled, rolling her eyes.

"Is that a real piano, too?"

"Seems to be. Violet's gonna be ecstatic when she drops by."

He smiled. "It'll be nice to see her that way."

"…yeah." She sighed. "You were right. I think we could all use this."

He moved closer, placing his hands on her waist. "We should make the most of it while we can."

She smirked, wrapping her arms around him in turn. "We should."

They took a moment just to kiss, much more intimately than they'd had a chance in a long time. When they went uninterrupted, they decided to keep going, taking up position on the couch to properly fall into each other. For a moment, they even forgot the horrors of the war that had been plaguing them for what felt like years now. It was peaceful and passionate and pure. Exactly what they'd needed. Even when they had to stop, they stayed wrapped up in each other's arms, finding solace in the quiet embrace.

They were both happy to claim this as the future that awaited them when the war was over.

Terra sighed contentedly, peacefully, as she laid down against him. "I've needed this."

Garrus smiled as he laid his hand on her hip. "We both have."

She nuzzled closer to him. "I'd hate to let go now."

"We're on shore leave. There's nothing saying we have to."

"Time goes on, love."

"That's why you capture it."

She smiled again. "You know me so well."

He laughed. "That I do. Goes both ways, last I checked."

She turned to look him in the eye. "I guess it does."

He was all too susceptible to this, losing himself in her eyes within a second. He was about to lean in to kiss her again when his omni-tool beeped. Against his better judgment, he checked it. "Oh, look at that, Sol picked now to say we should spend some time together again."

Terra groaned. "She couldn't let us have five more minutes?"

Garrus shrugged. "Let's be fair. The repairs to the ship are gonna take at least a few days. I'm sure we can still find some time." He smirked, laying his head affectionately against hers. "And we'll always have the rest of our lives."

She smirked back, returning his gesture. "Hard to argue with that. Alright, go on. Have some brother-sister time. I'll be getting settled in."

"I expect to see some new artwork at least on the way when I get back."

"You won't be disappointed."

After Garrus had left the apartment, Terra set to work, giving herself a brief tour of the place before unloading everything she'd taken from her cabin. She eventually reached the conclusion that, if her intentions were to have a real break and get to know the place she'd be spending it in, she could start by taking a shower in a less military and confined setting and trading in her uniform for some civvies. She felt a lot more relaxed afterwards (not that unwinding with Garrus briefly hadn't already done that…). She was halfway through retying her hair in its standard style when she heard the terminal downstairs ping with a message. Curious, she checked it, finding Joker was asking her to meet at a sushi place to discuss a few things. She headed straight there.

"Hey, commander," Joker smirked when she made her way to his table, "get a load of this place."

She had to admit it was nice. The floor and walls happened to contain an actual fish tank which, like the one in her cabin, was rather soothing to watch. "Impressive."

"And we only had to save the galaxy twice to get a table."

She smirked. "What's this 'we' you're talking about?"

He rolled his eyes. "Ha, ha. Just be glad we're getting a break. Though I'm not exactly comfortable with the idea of a bunch of strangers poking through my ship. I mean _your_ ship!"

"_Our_ ship, Joker. And it's best for her and all of us, no matter how much we want to be out there finishing this."

"The sooner it's over, right?" He sighed. "I might need one of those drinks with the little umbrellas."

"I'm the first human Spectre. I'll get you two umbrellas."

"Awesome use of power, boss. Speaking of which, your message said it was important?"

When he said that, all the alarms in her mind went off. "What are you talking about? I'm here 'cause I got a message from _you_."

He immediately saw the problem. "What? I didn't send anything."

Right on cue, a woman in an Alliance uniform rushed over. "Commander Shepard!" She bumped into someone, dropping her datapad. "Sorry!" She ducked down to grab it. "Commander, this is urgent!"

Joker groaned, shaking his head as the woman ran towards them. "Something tells me that's not the umbrella lady. And we didn't even get to the appetizers!"

Before Terra could retort, the woman was at their table. "Commander Shepard? Staff Analyst Maya Brooks. Alliance—oh, sorry." She saluted. "Alliance intelligence. There are people trying to kill you!"

Terra glanced sideways at Joker.

Joker nodded. "Yeah, I think she's aware of that."

"No!" Brooks asserted, "Not Cerberus and the Reapers, other people! New people! There's…it's…" She sighed, handing over her datapad. "Someone is hacking your accounts. I think they're targeting you."

"Big mistake," Terra sneered.

"Oh, boy!" Joker smirked, "There's the angry face!"

Terra gave the datapad a cursory glance. "Do you know who they are or what they're after?"

"No," Brooks answered, "there's no definitive intel. Last time I guessed without definitive intel, we almost landed troops on a gas giant. Which is bad!"

"Alright, from the top! What do you know?"

It was about then that a squad of mercenaries strode in. "Ladies and gentlemen! Tonight's performance is brought to you by random acts of violence!" They started shooting, sending the civilians scrambling.

Terra reacted fast, knocking over the table and pulling Joker down behind it.

"Man, I love show biz!" the merc in the lead smirked, "Spread out, boys! Find Shepard!"

Terra winced. Definitely after her, then. This wasn't good. She leaned carefully around her cover to survey the situation. It looked like the civilians had all managed to get out, but Brooks was down nearby. "Stay down, we're coming for you!" she called quietly. Then she turned to Joker. "Are you OK?"

He just curled up in pain. "Ow! My pancreas!"

Naturally, that was when one of the mercs caught sight of Brooks and dragged her to the front.

Terra groaned. That was going to make this harder. But she was never alone. She turned to Joker. "Garrus is meeting Solana nearby. Find him, tell him what happened, then find the rest of the crew."

Joker nodded, turning to the side exit and starting to sneak out. "Get Garrus, find the crew. Got it."

Unfortunately, Joker only made it halfway before one of the mercs came close enough to the table to catch sight of him, immediately taking aim on him. Unfortunately for _him_, he was also close enough for Terra to knock him down and then take him out with a quick thrust of her omni-blade, taking his gun.

Joker instantly turned to glare at her. "You used me as _bait_?!"

"Just go!"

"But you used me as bait!" Joker snapped as he left. If Terra wasn't mistaken, he left the premises calling out to passersby "See that?! Savior of the Citadel uses brittle bones guy as bait!"

Terra just rolled her eyes and waited for a chance to open fire. None of the mercs seemed to know where she was, so they were spreading out. All she had to do was wait for one to get too close again and two well-timed headshots pierced his shields, armor, and skull. To her surprise, none of the other mercs noticed. She smirked at the pistol. High power and silenced. She was going to have fun with this.

Terra Shepard wasn't exactly known for the stealthy approach, but rolling between cover, having patience before striking, and taking the time to hide the bodies left in her wake did the trick. The mercs never knew what hit them.

She raced over to Brooks, helping her back to her feet once it was clear. "You alright?"

Brooks nodded. "Yes, I think I—" Suddenly, her eyes went wide and she shoved Terra over. The laser sight she'd caught then turned to her shoulder as the offending rifle fired.

Terra reacted on instinct, grabbing the silenced pistol back and firing at the source of the shot. She took down this mercenary in one hit…then noticed too late that his muscles tensing when he died had caused one more shot to go off at the floor by her feet, resulting in a crack in the glass of the fish tank floor. "…uh oh." Before she could move, the floor shattered and she started falling.

Next thing she knew, she'd fallen about 50 stories (or at least it felt like that, it was hard to tell for sure with all the tumbling and impacts and falling objects) and she was sprawled on the floor of a maintenance walkway, drenched in fish water. She groaned as she pulled herself together, convinced herself that nothing was broken so much as bruised, and got moving.

_"Commander!" Brooks came over her COMM, "Can you hear me? Are you alright?"_

"Yep," Terra moaned, "feeling good…" She shook it off, starting her way down the walk. "What about you? You got hit."

_"I know! I used medi-gel. A lot of it. Well, all of it, actually. And now everything's a bit bouncy!"_

"…I think you used too much." Slowly recovering from the fall with every step, she hurried down from the maintenance walk to a keeper walkway and started making her way into the Ward markets. Brooks was able to inform her that there was a skycar lot across the way, so she just had to get there without getting shot down by mercs. Should be easy enough, especially with this newfound stealth approach proving to come in handy, but she wasn't taking any chances.

_"Oh," Brooks popped in again, "and don't use your COMM. Well, except for me, obviously. It's been hacked. I think that's how they found you."_

_Oh, and here I thought it was because of the extranet message clearly hacked to set me up._ Then again, the hack could be coming in now as a backup for the message not having done the trick. "Who are these guys?"

_"I don't know, but they really don't seem to like you."_

"…yeah, I'm sensing that." Rolling her eyes, she made her way down from the keeper catwalk and behind a market stall. She was hidden at first, but there was no way for her to jump in and hide bodies without putting herself right in the open, so she just had to rely on timing her shots. This worked for the first two before the mercs got wise and tracked her down. By then, though, she had their numbers down just enough that they were no match for her, even alone and injured.

Though the former was about to be corrected. _"Terra!" the voice she loved sounded over her COMM, "Can you hear me?! Are you OK?!"_

"I'm fine," she answered, "Might need a little backup, though."

_"Then it's lucky for you Archangel is your fiancé. I'm on foot, but I'll be there as fast as I can."_

_"Excuse me, who is this?" Brooks cut back in, "You're on an unsecured channel and you're putting Commander Shepard in danger!"_

_"I'm doing _what_? Who is this?!"_

Terra sighed. "Joker mentioned Staff Analyst Brooks, right? That's her. Please everybody play nice, I'm not in any position to play referee right now." Ironically, it was almost immediately after she said this that the next merc squad caught sight of her and opened fire, forcing her to duck down and stick to defense.

_"Terra, it's Tali," her COMM turned back on halfway through the skirmish, "We just heard what happened. Are you alright? Can we do anything?"_

"I'm fine. Garrus is on the way. You can help by finding Violet. I don't know where she went after we docked and I don't want to risk these guys going after her to get to me."

_"Don't worry, I've got her," Solana cut in, "I went straight for her after Garrus ran off. Oh, and, uh, Terra? Did I hear right? Did you fall through a fish tank five minutes ago?"_

Terra sighed. "Can we please talk about that part later?"

_"Oh, believe me, we will."_

_"Wait, Terra seriously…?" Tali said, "Why does all the crazy stuff always happen to you?"_

"Tali, my friend," Terra shook her head as she fired one last shot and started moving again, keeping low and scrounging thermal clips where she could, "I've been asking myself that for 16 years." She kept moving, cutting through the rest of the markets to a walkway that crossed to the skycar lot's area. Unfortunately, there was a sealed door in her way. "Brooks, I've got a path across, but C-Sec has it locked down."

_"Right, because of the…well, lockdown," Brooks concurred, "I can't get through from here."_

Terra quickly turned on her omni-tool and accessed the system. "Here, I think I can override it." She still wasn't exactly a tech wiz, but she knew how to access the C-Sec controls and disable them with her Spectre access. The door slid open, bringing her to celebrate her own hacking skills for once in her life. "Yes!"

Then, immediately, every alarm within five miles started going off.

"…crap."

_"Terra!" Garrus cut back in, "What's going on?! I heard that from here!"_

"Uh, it's all under control?" she "answered" as she stepped out to the walkway. She'd barely poked her head out before a swarm of mercs across the way caught sight of her and opened fire, forcing her to dive down behind a railing.

_"'All under control'?!" Tali demanded, "There are alarms going off all over the Wards!"_

Terra questioned why so many alarms going off at once still gave away her position at the center of it, but she focused on loading her weapon and taking careful aim on her ambushers. "Thought I'd make things more interesting."

_"You always did have a unique way of defining that…"_

"Comes with the turian side."

_"Commander," EDI cut in, "did you sustain cranial damage in the fall?"_

_"No, we just need to sit down and have a chat about her methods," Liara sighed, clearly shaking her head._

_"Hey, I like it," James smirked, "Keep 'em off balance with your crazy."_

_"Terra, I swear," Garrus growled, "if this turns into an Omega situation—"_

"—then _you_ get to be _my_ knight in shining armor," Terra smirked as she popped out to headshot a sniper, "Don't pretend that doesn't make you happy."

_"Right. Do we even know anything about these mercs?"_

"They have guns and don't like me."

_"Terra, you're not helping."_

_"Can we please keep this channel clear?!" Brooks finally snapped._

"Hey!" Terra retorted as she tossed back a grenade that had been thrown her way, "_They_ called _me_!" After the grenade went off, she leaned out of cover to check and found her route clear enough to make a break for it. She quickly raced across the walk and down towards the lot, only having to take cover and open fire on mercenary stragglers three more times.

_"Commander," Brooks said, "there's a C-Sec shuttle en route to the skycar lot if you can just get there."_

"On my way."

_"Good. Brooks over. No, out! Brooks out. Over and out! Brooks! OH—!"_

Terra smirked to herself for a few seconds before hurrying into the lot. There were three more mercs inside, shooting at someone. She raced in, weapon at the ready, only for all three mercs to go down, one flying over to collide with the wall next to her entrance.

Garrus stood there, holstering his rifle to shake his head at her. "Honestly, I leave you alone for five minutes…"

She scoffed as she lowered her pistol and stepped closer. "Like you haven't done the same to me."

He restrained the urge to clap back, gesturing to a nearby sealed door. "Landing pad's over there, but it's behind a locked gate."

She nodded. "We better look for a control panel." She walked past him to start looking.

He watched her, admiring the way her lavender top, skirt, and black boots highlighted her figure. "Nice outfit…"

She stopped dead in her tracks to glare at him over her shoulder.

He quickly caught himself. "Control panel! Right."

She rolled her eyes (even as she smirked to herself again) and started looking around. There was no sign of any control panel, but there was a door that led into what looked like a security room. Figuring that was a good place to check, she hit the door.

It didn't open. It sealed itself.

Confused, she checked the window. There was a volus inside, fiddling with the control panel they were looking for. She quickly readied her pistol. "Stand back."

"Hold on!" Garrus came over, pushing her hand down. Ignoring her skeptical look, he rapped his talons on the glass. "Hi there. Could you open this up?"

Amazingly, the volus went along with it, unsealing the gate.

"Much appreciated."

"Please leave!"

Garrus just smirked at Terra.

She looked between him and the volus for a second… "…well, I could've done that!"

He laughed as he led her to the landing pad. "You also could've just stayed in the apartment the bad guys don't know about yet."

"Thin ice, 'Angel." She finally pushed past him and came to the landing pad, ignoring how he was clearly snickering behind her. They were just in time to see the C-Sec shuttle pull in. But she had the feeling something was wrong.

She was really starting to hate how often she was right about things like this. The door opened to reveal a whole squad of mercs aiming heavy weapons at them. She just barely moved fast enough to push Garrus behind cover. Their shields could only take so much, so she started strategizing how best to use her pistol and his rifle to—

"RRRAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Out of nowhere, a certain krogan dove through a window overhead and came crashing down on the shuttle with so much force it was grounded. He jumped down and stormed inside, a whirlwind of charges and head-butts and kicks so hard that all the mercs who weren't rendered dead or unconscious were thrown over the ledge. When it was clear, he stepped out and retrieved the heavy weapon.

Terra leaned out and beamed at the sight of him. "Wrex! What are you doing here?"

"Ah," he waved her off as he tossed her the gun and drew his own, "just butting heads with the Council over krogan expansion. Heard there was some action down here, thought you could use a hand."

Terra smirked as she checked the gun and readied it. "You weren't wrong."

As if she'd summoned it, the ceiling of the lot exploded, allowing a horde of more mercenaries to start dropping in.

"Shepard," Wrex asked even as they dove into the firefight, "we got a way out of here?!"

"Wrex, please!" she called back, "I'm a professional!"

"That's not a 'yes'!"

"It's not a 'no'!"

Garrus gave her a sharp look. "Sometimes, you really drive me crazy!"

"Only 'sometimes,' huh?"

Wrex groaned before turning to head-butt something.

Terra had felt slightly overwhelmed not long ago, but now she felt unstoppable. Her mate and one of her two favorite krogan were behind her and she had a weapon in hand the mercs couldn't withstand. If it didn't seem like the mercs were arriving in one endless swarm, she'd consider this a highlight of her time on the _Normandy_, mission-wise.

_"Commander, you read me?" Joker finally cut in._

"Joker!" Terra responded, "We lost our ride. Where are you?"

_"On my way. Picked up Brooks. Figured you'd have a few questions."_

"Just hurry, alright?"

"Yeah, this is a great place to fight!" Wrex shouted, "Lots to destroy!" He accented this by firing a shotgun blast at a skycar display and causing an explosion that blew five different mercs off their feet if not burned them to death outright.

_"Almost there, commander," Joker said, "Just following the gunfire."_

Terra sighed, not even bothering to give Wrex a look for the wanton destruction. "Copy that."

_"Sorry we're late. Had to take the scenic route."_

_"'Scenic route'?!" Brooks' demanding voice came over the line, "We almost crashed four times! Who taught you how to drive?!"_

_"…and Brooks says 'hi.'"_

Terra signaled Garrus and Wrex to fall back on the other landing pad and focus on holding the mercs off, waiting for Joker to come around. Before long, their new ride pulled around and they were racing out of the mercenaries' range. That problem was solved.

Now onto the bigger problem.

"Someone wanna tell me what's going on?!" Wrex demanded as they regrouped in the apartment.

"I don't know," Garrus answered, clearly unnerved at the thought of his mate being under fire by assailants he didn't even recognize, "I've never seen those mercs before."

"I still can't believe you survived all that," Brooks commented, looking at Terra in astonishment, "They had guns. And grenades! And those drone things!"

"Yeah, I noticed," Terra said, "Any word on C-Sec's side of things?"

"No, and I didn't want to risk calling them to find out. It might make whoever we contact a target, too."

"Or they could've had inside help like Cerberus," Garrus agreed, "and that's how they got the shuttle."

Terra groaned. "So much for shore leave."

"Well…I'm sure we can still find some time off."

She gave him a brief smirk before turning to Brooks. "What about you?"

"I got shot!" Brooks all but shouted, "I took a desk job explicitly to not get shot! And then you took out 100 guys with a _pistol_!"

Terra blinked. "Well…yes, that did happen…"

"Who does that?! I mean, you, obviously, but besides you! …they said the medi-gel might make me jumpy. Do I seem jumpy?"

Garrus merely exchanged looks with Wrex before shrugging as if to say _Sometimes humans just make no sense._

Terra elected not to respond at all. "How did you even get mixed up in all this?"

"I monitor data for Alliance intel," Brooks explained, "to prevent fraud and hacking of officer IDs. I wrote a tracking program. It's really neat. I named it Mr. Biscuits, after my cat."

"_Brooks_…"

"Right. Sorry. Anyway, Mr. Bis—_my program_ detected a breach in your classified files. Soon, everything we had on you was compromised! Personnel files, mission reports—everything."

"Since when does hacking secure networks involve heavy weapon fire?!" Wrex demanded.

"Think what kind of damage they could do if they had the commander's military access codes or even her Spectre codes!"

Wrex didn't have to think for long. "Guess that explains why they want you dead, Shepard. Nothing to stop them until the damage is done."

"They would've found out they were gravely mistaken," Garrus retorted. He turned to Terra. "We might be able to track them, too. Let me see that pistol."

Terra nodded and took out the silenced pistol she'd taken off the mercs, setting it down on a nearby table.

Liara then entered and walked over. "Let me see it. I might be able to help." As she walked over, she turned on her omni-tool. "Glyph?"

The drone in question quickly appeared. _"I'll begin collating relevant intel for review, Dr T'Soni."_

Liara nodded to Terra. "It's good to see you in one piece. A shame about the sushi place, though. It was a favorite."

Terra sighed. "So I've heard. Where's the rest of the crew?"

"Yeah, what about those slackers?" Joker smirked as he walked in.

Terra rolled her eyes before coming over to greet him. "Been busy?"

"I found some folks who actually _like_ being shot at."

So the door opened and the rest of the squad entered.

"Permission to come aboard?" Tali smirked.


	76. The Quiet Approach

**Review reply: ****animexchick - Me, too. ;) In fact, you might notice I didn't want to paraphrase most of it, so this will take a few chapters (kind of why I planned to make it an epilogue and publish it separately before I restructured a few things in the story). Hope everyone enjoys it as much as I do.**

Chapter 76: The Quiet Approach

Subtlety a shadow  
A whisper in the winds  
Few can hear it  
But all feel the knife  
When it caresses the unwary bones

"Are you sure you're OK?" Violet asked for the 15th time as she hugged her sister.

"I'm fine!" Terra assured her, finally drawing her to pull away, "If I couldn't handle a little ambush long enough for backup to arrive, I wouldn't have lasted long on Elysium."

"We're all glad you're alright, Shepard," Joker nodded, "But seriously, when this is over and everything's settled, we are gonna talk about this bait thing!"

"I don't suppose you'd believe me if I told you that I legitimately thought you'd make it and I was planning to take them all with my omni-blade, would you?"

"Not really."

Terra sighed.

"Hey, look at it this way," Solana smirked as she stepped past her to lean against a window, "Falling through a fish tank is definitely gonna add some life and color to your war story repertoire."

"Oh, yes, it was very funny how I collapsed through the floor, taking all the fish with me, and then tumbled down 20 stories on broken windows and wall lights! I'm sure we'll all someday look back on it and laugh!"

"I'm looking back on it and laughing right now."

Terra rolled her eyes. "I am fine, by the way. Thanks for your concern, _sis_."

"Of course you're fine!" Ashley scoffed, "We know better than to worry about you. As evidenced by the fact that you immediately got up from that fall to methodically eliminate every last one of your ambushers _in a skirt_."

Terra defensively started tugging at the hem of said skirt, fighting the urge to glare at her fellow Spectre.

"You know," Tali sighed, "back during my Pilgrimage, I used to walk around near that sushi place and watch the fish through the window. I knew they'd never let me inside, but I kept telling myself 'Someday, when I've proven my worth to the galaxy, I'll go there for dinner!' And then…you broke their floor."

"As a matter of fact," EDI added, "the restaurant attack has made the news. Civilian casualties seem to have been restricted to…fish."

"Commander," Javik stepped in, "in my cycle, when we fled combat by falling through tanks containing aquatic animals, we usually…oh, right, we never did!"

When it reached the point that even Javik was making fun of her, Terra figured it was time to exit the scene. "Right, I'm talking to Wrex now." Leaving her current squad-mates to continue the jokes once she was out of earshot, she went upstairs to where the krogan was lounging. "I didn't get a chance to thank you for giving us a hand back there, big guy."

Wrex smirked. "Bet you never saw a shuttle get taken down like that before. Still got it."

She smiled as she sat down beside him. "You really do. It's gonna be nice to be working with you again. I've missed having a krogan behind me."

"Bet you have. Can't wait to show these mercs what we can do. They'll tell stories that will frighten their battle-mates for years!"

"Uh, Wrex? You have to leave survivors for that to happen."

"Oh. Well, then their corpses will frighten their battle-mates, same difference."

Terra shook her head with a smirk. She had _really_ missed having a krogan behind her.

"Terra?" Garrus stood at the hall into the master bedroom, nodding her over.

She nodded back, briefly telling Wrex she'd talk to him soon before heading into the bedroom.

Before she could even ask what was bothering him, Garrus sealed the door behind her and started kissing her senseless. When he finally stopped to catch his breath, he held onto her as if he was afraid she'd slip away. "When Joker caught up to me and said you were in trouble, I couldn't move fast enough. I kept thinking I never should've left…"

"I'm here, love, it's OK," she quickly assured him, drawing him to lay his hand on her sternum to feel her heartbeat.

He sighed, shaking his head. "Yeah. So much for having a break."

She laughed. "It's the thought that counts. At least it's not Reapers this time. And we have a sweet new hideout to break in."

"Right, unless the bad guys look in the window."

She sighed. "I would point out that we could just replace the glass with a two-way mirror or tint the outside or something, but we're a bit preoccupied now."

"Aren't we always?"

"Not for long. I made a promise I'm going to marry you and never let anything get in our way again."

He smiled. "And you always keep your promises."

"I do. Especially for you."

"…16 years and you've never let me down." He watched her sapphire eyes gleam when she smiled again. No one ever looked at him the way she did. As if he needed proof she loved him. He pulled her closer again, this kiss less desperate and comforting, more hopeful and pure.

She beamed as they separated this time. "So what have we learned?"

"Never have dinner with Joker, it won't end well."

She laughed again. One thing she could always count on him for. One more thing she loved about him. "Come on." She took him by the hand and drew him downstairs with her to the holo-table by the kitchen. When she found Brooks and Liara standing next to it, she nodded in greeting. "Doing better, Brooks?"

"I was," Brooks shook her head, "until I realized I'm gonna have to write a report about getting shot. I hear those are really complicated."

Terra shrugged as she took Liara's side. "It's faster if you make a template."

Brooks blinked at her. "I think you get shot too much."

"…probably, yeah."

Liara shook her head. "If you're done, Shepard, I think I've found something."

Terra nodded, calling the rest of the team over. "What do you have, Liara?" she asked when they were all gathered around the table.

"A lead," Liara explained, "I called in some favors to run a trace on the gun. It led me back to a man named Elijah Khan. He uses his casino to smuggle weapons onto the Citadel. Immediately after the attempt on your life, Khan made a very interesting call…" She used her omni-tool to bring up a recording of the call in question.

_"I'm cutting you off," Khan said, "I'm returning your down payment now."_

_"What's the problem?" a manipulated voice asked._

_"Turn on a vid-screen! When I sell a gun, I don't want it showing up on the nightly news!"_

_"You won't be linked to me."_

_"Save it! Our association is terminated! Oh! And if you even think about coming after me, I've got intel on you ready for primetime, so you ponder that. Khan out."_

"So that's our identity thief," Terra said as the recording stopped.

"Sounds like he's got an ID disguiser," Garrus said, "Those things are a pain to get around."

"And the mercs?" Terra asked Liara.

"They're a private corporation called CAT6," Liara answered.

"The Alliance classification for dishonorable discharges. Right. What about the call? How'd you find it?"

"Long story. But it involved the gun's biometric data, salarian intelligence, and a hanar prostitute with camera implants."

Terra blinked. "Seriously?"

"…no. But the truth is boring."

Terra smirked briefly before turning back to the situation at hand. "Khan didn't sound too friendly with that mystery voice. Maybe he'll share his intel with us."

"That would take some incredibly smooth talking. If he sees you, he'll probably assume you're looking for revenge. His casino has a panic room, he'll likely have gone to ground there. EDI could give us programs to hack the door, but the cameras and guards complicate things."

"Or worse," Brooks concurred, "If his guards ever open fire, civilians could get hit. …like I did."

Terra sighed. "Right. We'll have to play it safe. Small team, no weapons."

Suddenly, Glyph appeared on the holo-table. "Dr. T'Soni, this evening, the casino will be hosting a charity event to assist war refugees."

Liara exchanged glances with Terra. She could tell they both had the same idea. "Purchase some tickets, Glyph. Then call up a layout of the building."

The drone complied, changing the holo-table display to the requested layout.

"Score!" Joker smirked.

"I don't see how the blueprints help," Solana countered, "It's not like someone this paranoid would put a backdoor on his panic room."

EDI scanned the layout. "This airshaft bypasses the security gate and ends in storage. From there, the panic room's door-camera can be disabled."

"Too convenient," Ashley shook her head, "There's gonna be alarms all over that shaft."

"I might have countermeasures for the alarm systems," Liara assured them, "but I won't know for sure until we're inside."

"Who will go through the shaft?" Javik questioned, "They would need to be small in size."

"Yeah, that's not me," Wrex shook his head, "Too many snacks on roast varren leg."

Naturally, the room's attention turned to Tali, who quickly flinched back. "I would suspect my suit's built-in tech would be picked up on the security sensors."

A couple of them still turned to EDI, who shook her head. "My presence in the casino would arouse suspicion. Mechs are not allowed since they can have cheating software."

"If you need someone small, I can do it," Violet stepped up.

Terra sighed. "Not to do you down, sis, but have you ever actually hacked anything in your life?"

"…fair enough."

"Appreciate the thought and the bravery, but it's better you stay behind with EDI."

"What you need," Brooks surmised, "is someone trained in zero-emissions tech. No electronics, no metal, just undetectable polymers." She smirked. "We had a course back at Op-Int, disabling a bomb with these little tweezers. See, the bomb was filled with shaving cream—"

"Alright," Terra shrugged, "you're up."

"What?" She took a second to realize what Terra was saying. "Wait! No! What?!"

"You said it yourself. You've got the training, you're the right size, and the rest of us can't hide our gear. _You're up_."

Brooks glanced between the others for support in objecting to this plan, finally seeing there was no point and stumbling to compose her own argument. "But…I managed to get shot just coming to talk to you! Now I'm supposed to hack my way into a safe room?!"

"Not by yourself, no. You handle the vents and the door. Garrus and I will be right there to cover everything else."

"If that's settled," Liara nodded as she turned off the holo-table, "then there's only one last hurdle to get us inside."

Terra turned to her curiously. "Which is?"

"…black tie required."

_Two hours later…_

The list of things Garrus really didn't like wasn't long so much as dense. Among the top five things on that list would be not being with Terra and dressing formal. Turians were most comfortable in their armor, practically at home in it. Military culture that they were, they still had formal affairs, but the attire for such was usually uniform or so simple it was practically casual. Anyone looking around the Citadel would see the turians were mostly conformed to about three different styles where humans and asari had dozens. Garrus, in particular, felt wrong forcing himself into formalwear and leaving his visor behind for what must have been the first time in five years (while not as obvious as EDI, it was just as likely to be considered suspicious and he figured it was better safe than sorry). Frankly, he would've talked his way out of this situation entirely if it wasn't for the simple fact that his mate was in danger and his place was by her side.

And also because the sight of her when he caught up to her at the casino entrance was worth it.

Terra was a soldier, too, but she was also still an artist, so she had no qualms with making full use of her people's variety of formalwear. If anything, she seemed to have gone out of her way to have fun with this opportunity. First and foremost, there was the dress—light black silken fabric hugged her body, the hemline sweeping from her left thigh to her right knee, the neckline arching from her left shoulder to under her right arm, both ends and both sleeves embroidered with silver sparks, a stripe of pink over a stripe of gold across her waist that both narrowed on her right side. If that wasn't enough to catch the eye, there was also the matching black shoes seamed with silver. She had even taken her hair out of its traditional style and set it flowing in tree brown waves that bounced over her shoulders, though her bangs remained stubbornly fixed in their long since habituated position over her right eye and her hair also seemed to still be leaning to her left. Not to mention the way her sapphire eyes gleamed when they found his, making the actual sapphires in her necklace and ring seem dull in comparison.

It was all he could do not to be immediately all over her. He still smiled brightly as he took her side, wrapping his arm around her as if to proudly make it known to everyone who saw them that this beautiful, amazing human was _his_. "Looking good, Terra."

She smirked. "I did the best I could without a carapace or a crest."

"Your best has my mandible on the floor."

Brooks came in just behind them, purposely far less eye-catching than Terra in her simple blue dress, and headed straight up to the vent entrance. Their COMMs were still on, connected to everyone else as they moved in. Liara cautioned them to act casual, mingle with the guests to avoid arousing suspicion. In that case, Terra wasn't sure if it was a good or bad thing that she was clearly far less recognizable in this getup. Either way, she went along with it, clinging close to her fiancé and making idle chatter when necessary. It was straight back to business when Brooks let them know she needed help, both of them hurrying upstairs as quickly as they could without drawing attention.

"Just like we thought," Brooks told them, "There's an alarm on the grate."

"Liara's got a workaround," Garrus said, discreetly synching his omni-tool with Terra's, "Passive tech scanner piggybacking on your text translator, should locate the security wiring."

Terra gave the system a brief test before disabling her omni-tool. Sure enough, she could see the wiring in the walls just as easily as she could see Alliance Standard on asari displays. "Nice trick. I think Kasumi did something similar on that heist we pulled."

"Too bad Kasumi isn't here to do all this for us."

"She really could." Terra turned to Brooks. "Wait here. We'll turn off the alarm." She quickly followed the wiring on the vent around a corner to a security junction. Naturally, it wasn't that simple. "I see the junction, but there's a camera on it."

_"Don't worry," Liara jumped in, "I'm sending a hack to your omni-tool. It'll fool the camera if you can download it out of view, but it'll self-delete after a few seconds."_

Terra checked that she'd received the code in question and slipped around the camera's view to perform the download. Once the footage was cycling, she moved in and spliced the junction. "Alarm's down."

_"Checking…" Brooks confirmed, "…and in we go."_

Now that they were underway, Terra went straight back to acting normal. Well, no, "normal" wasn't exactly her way, but she could still act. She played along with the party scheme, mingling as necessary to disguise how she was familiarizing herself with the wiring she could now see in the walls. She bided her time, still staying close to Garrus and waiting until they were needed.

_"Commander!" Brooks finally called down the COMM, her voice dramatically lowered._

"What?" Terra whispered back.

_"There's a guard right below me!"_

"Don't panic," Garrus prepared to move in, "I'll get his attention."

Terra smirked. "No, wait, I've got this one." She took a second to prepare herself and then pretended to stumble into the guard. "UGH! I think I ate a steak meant for the turians! Am I gonna die?!"

While the guard started trying and failing to calm her down, Garrus smirked behind a wall. _Well played._

After a fair amount of time had passed, Terra let down the act and assured the guard she'd be fine, sending him back to his patrol. As soon as he was out of sight, she jumped back to Garrus' side to turn her COMM back on. "You're clear, Brooks."

"We'll see how long that lasts," Garrus commented.

It didn't last long. Three minutes later, Brooks came back over the line. _"Um…"_

"What is it?" Terra asked.

_"There's an obstruction detector and a pressure plate in front of me. You'll have to disable both of them before I can keep going."_

"Give us a second to find the right junctions. We're right there." She followed the wiring, stopping in her tracks when she saw the end of it. "Well, the good news is I found the junction. The bad news is there's a camera right on it and a guard right on _that_."

_"You are going to fix it, right? Because my legs are maybe starting to cramp a little…"_

"Don't worry," Garrus stepped up, "Terra's still got the camera hack and I can distract the guard."

"Better move fast," Terra nodded, slipping around the side to discreetly move towards the camera.

Garrus waited until she was close to position to intercept the guard. "Uh…oh! A human! Perfect! I'm kind of on the outs with my human girlfriend. Think you could give me some insights?"

The guard just blinked at him. "…sir, I am definitely not an expert."

Terra smirked to herself as she finished applying the hack to the camera and moved in on the junction. Unfortunately, the wiring in this junction was less simple than the original alarm. "Ah, come on…"

Even more unfortunately, Garrus' distraction wore off just as she finished the splice. The guard caught sight of her just as she was withdrawing from the junction to let the camera hack self-delete. "Hey!"

Terra and Garrus both proceeded with the natural response of panicking and darting out of view.

Once they were around the corner, Terra started frantically devising a way around getting caught. She didn't think "acting natural" was going to do it this time. But maybe…

Garrus was attempting to strategize. "What do we do? Maybe if we make a break for it, we can lose him in the—"

Suddenly, Terra grabbed him by the shoulders, pinned him to the wall, and started kissing him like there was no tomorrow.

He didn't think now was the best time, but he knew better than to question her and went along with it, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her back just as fervently.

When the guard caught up with them, he started looking around for the ones he was pursuing. He glossed right over the two lovebirds in the corner and finally gave up, going back to his post and shaking his head.

After she heard footsteps trailing off, Terra tentatively withdrew from the amorous embrace to scan the area. Once she was certain they were clear, she sighed with relief and pulled away from her turian.

Garrus promptly gave her an astonished glare. "What was that?"

"PDA makes me people uncomfortable, remember?"

Seeing her point and that it had worked, he smirked. "Guess that depends on who you're talking about."

She smirked back. "We should probably change tactics. You're better at hacking and sneaking, I'm better at persuasion."

"Right. You point me to the junctions, I signal you for distraction."

"We got a plan. Let's go." Discreetly letting their left hands brush each other long enough to transfer the camera hack from her omni-tool to his, she started following the wiring to the other end. "Brooks, did we manage to turn off the detector?"

_"Let me see… Looks like it worked. Just the pressure plate."_

"On it." She rounded the next bend to find the junction. There was no camera on this one, but there were two guards. She could only distract one at a time without outright drawing the attention of everyone in the building, so they were going to have to time this perfectly. She nodded to Garrus to move in quietly. While her turian casually strode into position by the wall, she waited for an opportunity, carefully observing the patrols of both guards. When one of them was for sure facing away, she moved in to catch the second. "Hey!" she chirped, pretending to stumble into him, "Can someone tell a girl where to get a drink around here? I mean, really!"

The guard was predictably shaken. "Oh, boy. Uh, ma'am? I'm on duty. The bar is that way. _That way_. That—do you see it?"

Garrus smirked to himself while his mate played for time and allowed him to bypass the junction.

All too easy.

Once they were clear, Terra checked her COMM again. "How's it going in there?"

_"I'm at the storage room grate," Brooks confirmed, "Just need to hit the lock."_

"Be careful."

No sooner had she said so than a series of clatters erupted over the line.

"Brooks?"

_"Uh oh. Infrared laser hooked up to a silent alarm. I didn't get it in time."_

_"Shepard," EDI jumped in, "I'll call the responding guard and tell him it was a false alarm, but you must stall him before he reaches Brooks."_

"That I can do," Terra answered, rushing back across the floor. As soon as she caught sight of the guard, she intercepted him. "Hey!"

He groaned. "Hold on. I'm trying to do three different things here." The second he stopped moving, his omni-tool pinged. He checked it.

_"Sir," EDI came through in a perfectly disguised voice, "we checked out the alarm in storage. It's nothing. Minor accident."_

"Find out who tripped it and get them in my office by end of shift." He hung up and turned back to Terra. "Now what did you need?"

Terra blinked. "Oh. I'm sorry, are you security? I thought you were a friend of mine. You've got the…same…suit."

"That—_you_—" He sighed. "…enjoy your evening."

Terra smirked to herself as he strode past. "You're clear, Brooks."

_Brooks breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks, commander. I'll see if I can get to the panic room."_

Terra turned back to Garrus so they could return to "mingling." "We always work better together."

Garrus nodded. "Proven fact."

It was less than two minutes this time before Brooks came over the line to let them know they just needed to catch up to her at the door. The catch to this was that Brooks was only able to disable the security on her side and not on theirs, so they still had to hack a junction. Naturally, this was the hardest one yet since the junction was being watched by a camera that was being watched by _another _camera that was in plain view of a guard whose patrol overlapped with another one.

Fortunately, Garrus was able to come up with a way around this one. He leaned casually against the wall until the second guard was in range, then he rigged his overload to hit one of the lights across the room while no one was watching him. The guard, along with half of the other people nearby, immediately turned his full attention to this. "Alright, that should buy us a minute or two if you can get the other—" He turned to see his human wasn't there. "Terra?" He looked back around the wall into the room the cameras were in.

Terra was already distracting the guard, playing such perfect alligator tears that Garrus himself would've believed them had he not seen her genuinely cry before. "And then he said 'I just want to be friends.' And I said 'Are you breaking up with me?!'"

The guard struggled to formulate a response for a moment before groaning. "They don't pay me enough for this… I'm, uh…sorry to hear that, ma'am."

Garrus struggled not to start laughing as he snuck around to disable the cameras. In another life, his mate could've been a star at acting. After both cameras were down, Garrus hurried over to "drag" Terra away from the guard apologetically and then race for the door before the hack could self-delete. "Have I ever told you how brilliant you are?"

Terra smirked as she let the act fade. "Not often enough." After they were through the door, she took the front again, leading Garrus and Brooks into Khan's office. "Khan, I'm not here to threaten you. We need to talk."

Garrus, however, knew something was wrong the second they walked in the door. In C-Sec and as Archangel, he'd seen this enough to know what. So he moved in and turned Khan's chair around to reveal that the weapons smuggler was dead. "And here I had this whole bad cop routine planned…"

Brooks rushed over to check the computer. "Commander, there's a deletion order on the terminal. I don't know if it was him or the killer or…" She gasped. "When I tripped that alarm! Did I screw this up?" She stopped when she noticed that Terra wasn't worried and Garrus was scanning the terminal. "…what are you doing?"

"Checking for mistakes," Garrus answered, "He made that call tonight, which means this must have happened since then. They wouldn't have had time to plan this and…" He smirked as he found what he was looking for. "…would've missed things in the rush." He looked to Terra. "What was that word again?"

"Bingo," Terra smirked as she stepped in to check for herself, "And I'd say it was his name-o. Data's gone, but the COMM history is still active. We can see who that call was placed to if we—" She pressed the button.

The vid-COMM on the wall behind them turned on instantly. _"Elijah. Come crawling back?"_ The image and voice were both disguised, but it was clear who it must be—their identity thief.

Terra turned to face them sharply. "Guess again."

_"You! I see you've recovered from flopping on the floor like a fish."_

She scoffed. "That's your most imaginative insult? You're gonna have to try harder. The last guy who trash-talked me was a few kilometers taller."

_"Trying to rattle me so I'll slip up? You have nothing. All you can do is wait for the hammer to fall."_

"Why? What did I ever do to you?"

There was a clear hesitation. Yet when they spoke again, the voice, even through the disguiser, was clearly determined and spiteful. _"I'm gonna take everything you have and everything you are." _Then they hung up.

Garrus growled. "Not enough time to trace the call. Just enough time to tick me off."

"Both of us," Terra agreed, "We need to head back. Pull the data drives."

"The ones that got wiped?" Brooks questioned, "You really think we can still find something?"

"If we give them to EDI? In a millisecond."


	77. Duality

Chapter 77: Duality

A reflection may act  
It may breathe  
It may seem  
Yet it does not live for itself

"So!" Garrus commented as they returned to the apartment, "Nice party! Well…unless you were the host. Didn't turn out so well for him."

Terra groaned, shaking her head. "Just tell everyone what happened." While he went to do so, she turned to Brooks. "You should start working on the drives with EDI." She waited until Brooks complied before heading in herself.

Almost immediately, the others started making sarcastic comments, as was to be expected by now. These included but were not limited to James' "Yikes, commander, you can't even attend a party without someone ending up dead," Joker's "I could go for some food while we wait. Too bad you shot the best sushi place on the Citadel to pieces," and Solana's especially biting "Nice job taking down the smuggler. Oh, wait, that wasn't you?" Terra finally turned to the one person she could rely on not to provoke the taunts further.

Violet was sitting at the piano, gently tracing the keys with her fingers.

Terra smiled. She had missed seeing her sister in her element. "If you want to play, go ahead. No one else here can, as far as I'm aware."

Violet smiled back. "Maybe I will. It's just been a long time." She then turned to look at her sister and beamed. "Wow."

Terra rolled her eyes as she fiddled with the sleeves on her dress. "Yeah, I know." She smirked as she turned to whisper "Wait until you see the wedding dress."

"It is impressive, commander," Ashley smirked, "But I'll have you know I look pretty great in a fancy dress, too. I'm gonna need an occasion to wear one."

"The casino will be hosting another gala in a few months time," Glyph promptly suggested, "Shall I arrange for tickets, commander?"

Terra sighed. "…once was enough."

"What's the problem, Shepard?" Wrex commented as she started to walk past him, "Don't want me as your date? Too much krogan for you to handle? A lot of people have that problem. Most of them…are dead."

Terra finally shook her head and turned to head upstairs. "Just be ready for whatever EDI finds on the drive." Ignoring the continued smirks and sarcasm behind her, she went up to the balcony overlooking the living room.

Garrus was already there, recovering his visor to turn it back on before leaning against the railing and smiling at the sight of her. "They have an interesting way of showing they care."

"You mean the squabbling sibling dynamic? Yeah, it's one I'm very familiar with."

"I'm sure we'll have more time to have fun with it when this mess is over. Oh, and, uh…" He smirked as he drew closer and took her hand. "…to borrow a phrase from Vega, you look 'smoking' in that dress, Terra."

She smiled almost timidly as she drew closer in turn. Hearing Violet and Ashley say so was one thing, but hearing it from Garrus was quite another.

"You got some looks back there."

"So did you."

"Well, yeah, but the ones directed at me mostly said 'How did a turian like that get a girl like her?'"

She gave him a look of sheer admiration. "Honestly, there are days I wonder how _I_ got lucky enough to get _you_."

He smiled as he drew her closer, nuzzling against her when she laid her head on his shoulder. "Guess we were just meant to be."

"…that's kind of what I figured, yeah."

As if to heighten the moment, that was when Violet tentatively pressed down a key on the piano. Steadily, she reached for more notes and then for proper chords before finally beginning to play a song. It took all of five seconds for the snarky conversation to die down in favor of giving the former prodigy a proper audience.

Terra sighed contentedly. If she could just stay in her mate's arms and listen to her sister playing until the end of time, she'd be happy.

"Commander!" Brooks called up as the song was fading out, "I think we found something!"

Of course she never got what she wanted. Maybe she'd at least have one night uninterrupted when this was settled and they were back to a real shore leave. Giving Garrus a shrug and an apologetic look, she went back downstairs with him close behind and started gathering the team for another meeting around the holo-table.

"Thought the data's root structure was erased," EDI informed them as they gathered, "the logic integrity remains viable."

"EDI has an incredible talent for this," Brooks nodded, "I mean, I know she's an AI, but still. We found an encrypted communication from a few days ago. Just need another minute to crack it."

"A whole minute?" Joker scoffed, "EDI here could shave that down to five seconds."

If EDI was flattered, she didn't show it. "I thought it best to give Staff Analyst Brooks a chance to improve her decryption skills."

"And now you've lost your chance to show off."

"Like she needs it!" Brooks scoffed, "You're the crew of the _Normandy_! You're legends to the Alliance!"

"Legends, huh?" Solana smirked, "What kind, might I ask?"

"The kind people look up to. The kind they owe their lives to."

"Then how come everyone's always shooting at us?" Wrex countered.

"I think that's mostly you, Wrex," Tali remarked, "The bigger the target, the bigger the…well, target."

"You're saying I've gained weight?"

"It just means there's more of the legend to love," Liara interceded, though she was unable to hide a smirk.

Just as Wrex was unable to hide a sneer.

"And the camaraderie, the friendship?" Brooks noted, "I'm starting to think that's your secret weapon."

"Ah," Terra waved her off, "it's all just part of the job."

"Wait, '_job_'?!" Garrus cut in, "You mean the rest of you are getting paid for this?! Why didn't anyone tell me?!"

"Who needs money?" Violet countered, "You're getting my sister!"

Ashley immediately busted out laughing. "She has a very good point, Vakarian!"

Garrus just groaned, practically rolling his eyes.

Brooks shook her head, turning her attention back to the decryption and finding it was complete. "Here we go." She checked it, her eyes widening at what she saw. "Whoa! Those mercs who are after you? They bought _a lot _of weapons. Big ones!"

Ashley's flash of mirth faded almost instantaneously when she saw what came onto the display. "Mechs? What do they need with that kind of firepower?"

That was when Glyph flew in, a red flash blinking at its core.

"It appears this drone is preparing to rebel," Javik noted, already preparing to counterattack.

Liara nudged him to calm down. "Glyph, did you find something?"

_"I have just monitored the commander's Spectre access code in use at the Citadel archives," the drone reported._

Terra exchanged alarmed looks with Liara. How had the identity thief gotten her Spectre codes?! She quickly told Glyph to "Show us."

Brooks looked over the display as it turned to a layout of the archives in question. "The archives are going into emergency lockdown. Whoever's hacking your records is there right now!"

"What do we know about the place?" Terra asked.

"Council keeps sensitive historical information there," Garrus explained, "_Really_ sensitive, I'd wager, considering even my old C-Sec clearance never got me in."

"And I'm guessing your Spectre codes can't get us in if they're already logged in the system," Solana sighed.

"Then we find our own way in," Terra announced, turning to change from the dress to her armor, "Gear up and let's—" She stopped dead in her tracks when she found a volus standing in the kitchen behind her. "…uh…" She turned questioningly back to the others. "…how did this guy get in?"

"Oh, pizza delivery guy," James explained, "I got the munchies."

"Double pepperoni," the volus confirmed, holding up a box.

Brooks made the understandable decision to ignore this and continue looking over the display. "These archives are huge. You'll have a lot of ground to cover. Shame you can't bring everyone."

Terra smirked. "Who says we can't? All hands on deck for this one."

"Alright!" James agreed enthusiastically, "But, uh, who gets to take point with you?"

Wrex quickly turned to give Terra an insistent look. "Ahem."

"Uh, ahem?" Solana retorted.

"Ahem," Tali concurred.

"_Ahem_!" Garrus interjected.

"Ahem!" the volus suddenly cut back in, "Who's going to pay the bill?"

_Twenty minutes later…_

Joker kindly volunteered to stay behind with Violet, but everyone else was set on coming along. This meant there'd be a grand total of 12 people joining in the assault, which necessitated splitting into three teams of four—Cortez, Ashley, EDI, and Javik as Team Hammerhead; Brooks, Liara, James, and Tali as Team Mako; and Terra, Garrus, Solana, and Wrex leading the charge. They arranged themselves this way even in the skycars on the way there, all connected over COMMs as they raced towards their destination.

"What's the best way into the archives?" Terra asked as they took off.

"The facility is located below the Wards," Brooks answered, "so maybe a direct breach for maximum surprise?"

Terra smirked as she finished checking her gear. "I like it. Sounds like you're learning the ropes."

"Hey," Cortez commented, "stick with us long enough and you'll learn ropes, knives, bombs, thresher maws…"

"Don't hang around too long, though," Wrex countered as they started to land, "or you'll start making friends with asari."

"I heard that!" Liara snapped as they moved out.

As they gathered, Brooks pointed them to a particular area. "This is it. The archives are right below us. Might be a little tricky to get in."

James smirked, pulling out an explosive. "Not really."

Terra stepped back, trying not to wonder how long he'd been carrying that.

When the explosive went off and took the floor with it, opening the path into the archives, Wrex immediately dropped in. "Krogan first!" he called smugly as he readied his shotgun, "See you at the party, princesses!"

Liara rolled her eyes before dropping in behind him.

The rest of the squad quickly followed, spreading out into their respective groups when they reached the first fork in the road. The room they entered in was empty, but they still had eyes on each other as they made their way in. Terra signaled them all to keep going, eyes forward and steps quiet, as they readied for the worst to happen.

So, naturally, the worst happened. Almost immediately, they all had laser sights trained on them.

Terra groaned as she drew her rifle. "Not this again!"

Right on cue, the lights all slammed on and a contingent of CAT6 mercenaries swarmed into the room.

"Ambush!" Wrex announced as if it wasn't obvious as he charged in.

"Scatter and take cover!" Terra called to the others as she shot down the first merc to take aim on her so she could duck down and start lining up shots.

"In the old days, we had at least five minutes before a mission went south!" Wrex scoffed even as he started shooting down their opponents.

If the mercs' startled reactions were anything to go by, they hadn't been expecting Terra to bring her _entire_ squad _and_ Solana, Cortez, and Brooks (and that's not even mentioning the alarmed cries she heard of "They've got a krogan!" to her satisfied delight). It was only a matter of time before the mercs were all mowed down.

"Brooks, you OK?" Terra asked between shots.

_"Upstairs!" Brooks answered, "Scattering and taking cover!"_

"Don't lose sight of each other. We're outnumbered in closed quarters and—"

_"AH!"_

"Brooks?!"

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" Just as the squad had solidified the upper hand, someone on a balcony overlooking the room stepped up with a gun. Holding Brooks hostage. "Drop your weapons or this won't end well for her!"

Terra might've been convinced that they could somehow maneuver Brooks out of danger, but the whole scenario had been enough of a diversion to the fight to lure everyone into the open and, since the mercs had clearly been expecting it, into a concentrated line of fire. Even if they managed to handle that particular issue without any major injuries, it really _wouldn't_ end well for Brooks. Limited options. One of Terra's least favorite positions. She finally grudgingly tossed her rifle down, enough signal to the others to go along with it for now.

The mysterious figure, clearly their identity thief, pushed Brooks off the balcony.

While Brooks recovered from the fall and stumbled off to regroup with Team Mako, Terra turned to glare down their adversary. "Whoever you are, your little plan is gonna fail. And then there'll be nowhere you can hide where we won't find you."

The shadow scoffed. "Hide? Why?" And then stepped into the light. "I'm Commander Shepard. I never hide."

Anyone watching from the outside would think the entire archives had been frozen in place as the shock of the moment descended on them all.

"Really?!" Tali finally groaned, "Really?"

"…OK…" Garrus said, "…not exactly how I saw this playing out."

"Yeah, this gig just keeps getting weirder and weirder," James added.

Sure enough, though, the figure that jumped down from the balcony to face them head-on was a human woman with the same face as Terra Shepard. Even in a different armor set and without her wavy brown hair pulled into its traditional style, it was plain to see. She didn't even have a _similar_ appearance, like Violet, she was _identical_.

Terra, understandably, was the most stunned of all of them. "This is…_what_?! Who are you?! Where did you come from?!"

"The same DNA as you," she sneered as she stepped up to stare her down.

"A clone," Wrex surmised.

"Cerberus spared no expense resurrecting you. I was created in case you needed any spare parts, like a heart or a lung."

"That was a year ago now!" Terra responded, "Where have you been all this time?"

"In a coma. Until I woke up six months ago. While you were in a jail cell on Earth…I was learning to be human."

"Then we're on the same team."

The clone rolled her eyes, scoffing. "We're not even in the same league."

That made it clear there wasn't much chance of reasoning with this Terra. With made the real Terra suspicious. "I suppose the Illusive Man sent you, then?"

"No," the clone growled. Was that exasperation or dejection? "He abandoned me when he had what he wanted. _You_."

Garrus was tempted to argue that this wasn't exactly true but settled for asking what they were all thinking: "Then why are you trying to kill us?!"

"Because I don't have her memories," the clone shook her head, "I could never fool my supposed friends. Especially not the great Garrus Vakarian." She turned to glare at him. "I'll never understand what you see in each other."

Garrus glared right back, silently taking Terra's hand. "No. You won't."

"And I don't need to. That's what makes me better." The clone turned back to glaring at her antecedent. "I'm the lone wolf you were always meant to be. Without the emotional baggage holding me back."

Solana scoffed. "No one's ever gonna believe you're Terra."

The clone smirked. "They will when I'm flying her ship."

That did it. Terra instantly turned on her COMM and sent out the emergency signal. "Shepard to _Normandy_! Initiate emergency lockdown! Transmitting command codes now!" She started sending the codes through.

The clone received them. "Good plan. Too bad the signal was blocked." She then turned on her own COMM, transmitting the signal herself. "Shepard to _Normandy_. We're leaving!"

Terra started trying to throw herself at the clone, but Garrus tightened his hold on her hand, keeping her from throwing herself headlong into gunfire. "It'll snow on Palaven the day someone steals my ship!"

The clone waved her off. "It isn't stealing if I'm the commanding officer." She turned to head through the main doors and further into the archives. "Execute them!"

However, in this particular instance, Solana was the unknown variable. She may not have been the sniping, hacking scout her brother had so skillfully been, but she'd been on enough infiltration missions to know how to confront being cornered. The second the clone had left the room, Solana started scanning the environment for what the mercs wouldn't have seen. Her eyes never failed her, this time quickly taking notice of the Citadel replica hanging semi-precariously from the ceiling. Smirking mischievously to herself, she waited until the mercenary behind her had his gun trained on her and the rest were distracted with lining up shots on the others.

Then she kicked her gun up from the floor, snatched it out of midair, and whirled around to bash her would-be killer's face with it. Even through the helmet, the impact was enough to throw him, allowing her to twist his arm, use him as a human shield to deter anyone from interrupting her maneuver, and then fire his weapon directly into the wires holding up the replica.

Like a _Phantom of the Opera_ chandelier, the replica came crashing down to shatter in the middle of the room, sending the squad and the mercs scrambling. This time, it was the _Normandy_ crew that reacted quickly, recovering their weapons and firing position. The fight was back on.

"OK, that was actually really cool!" Terra called to Solana even as she reloaded her gun and prepared for the next wave.

Solana smirked as she dispatched her human shield and retook her own cover. "Aren't you glad you brought me along?"

"That depends. Is everyone OK?"

_"We're on the balcony!" Liara confirmed over the COMM even as she used a barrier to buy Team Mako time to regroup and open fire._

_"I'm OK, too!" Brooks added._

"Everyone else?" Terra asked.

_"Other side!" Cortez confirmed._

_"Having a little party up here!" Ashley beamed, "With bullets!"_

_"These primitives will make good sport," Javik agreed._

_"Terminating hostiles!" EDI affirmed._

_"If we go down," Liara added even as she dispersed her barrier to let loose a singularity that disabled several of the mercs taking aim on her, "at least we go down together!"_

_"One big, happy, butt-kicking family!" James agreed, "See that shot, Brooks? That's how legends do it!"_

_"If I wasn't covering my eyes," Brooks responded, "I'd be impressed!"_

"Alright, everyone!" Wrex growled as he charged another mercenary, "Uncle Urdnot is back in town and he brought the boom!"

Terra gave him a sideways look before taking aim on her next shot. "Is that a catchphrase or something, Wrex?"

"Thought I'd try it out! See what you think!"

_"Try again!" Tali said._

"Rapier Squad!" one of the mercs called down his COMM as a contingent of reinforcements arrived, "Orders are to kill the other Shepard's crew! No messing around this time!"

"But they've got a krogan!" one of the other mercs retorted, "Why don't we have a krogan?!"

"Wouldn't wanna be you, princesses!" Wrex called back before laughing and head-butting one of them.

"And that…that's even a Prothean over there!"

_"And that's a future corpse over there!" Javik called back before slamming one of them._

"Hey, wait! That turian is Archangel! How are we supposed to kill him?!"

"You're not!" Garrus snapped before sniping his next target and setting their shields to overload.

"And word of advice?" Terra added, "No one messes with him but me!" She accented that with a grenade and an omni-blade in an opposing sniper's back.

"Maybe the other Shepard should've stuck around to help!" the complaining merc groaned.

"Wow, you guys have some scary reputations!" Solana smirked, "I'm so proud!"

_"Yeah, I think we're really getting to them!" James smirked with her, "Hey, _pendejos_! Our Shepard's better than yours!"_

"Better looking, too!" Garrus couldn't help but add with a snicker.

Terra smiled to herself before catching sight of the last merc still standing against their firing line and promptly sniping him down. She then took a second to scan the area and catch her breath. "I think we're clear!"

"Right!" Wrex said, "Now where'd the other you go?"

"She's pushing into the archives." She started forging ahead, Garrus, Wrex, and Solana right behind her, and organizing the team over the COMM as they moved. "Stay in groups and keep pushing. Search everywhere until we find her. Team Mako, take point."

_"Got it!" Brooks said, "…what's a Mako?"_

_"Something we could use right about now…" Liara sighed._

"Team Hammerhead," Terra continued, "cover our flank."

_"Will do," Cortez answered, "And the Mako's got nothing on the Hammerhead!"_

"Please don't start that with James again. I already said you were both right!" Shaking her head at them from a distance, she led the way through the main doors and the entryway into the archives themselves. To say that the archives themselves were as big as a city would not have been an understatement.

"Huh," Wrex, master of the obvious, noted, "big place."

_"Shepard," Tali asked, "what do you think your clone is looking for in here?"_

"Anything's possible," Terra shrugged.

_"Like waking up and finding out you've got a clone?" Ashley remarked._

"I don't even wanna talk about it."

Solana seemed primed to make a sarcastic remark anyway but knew Terra well enough to think better of it. "Even split up, how are we supposed to find anything in here?"

Terra, however, was always quick with inspiration and came up with an idea. "Glyph!"

The info drone promptly flew over. _"Yes, commander?"_

"Track the target, update us on its location."

_"What is the nature of the target?"_

"She looks like me."

_"Then I have found the target."_

"No, Glyph, it's _another_ me. Now get going!"

_"At once, commander."_ With that, the drone flew away to scout ahead.

All three teams moved practically in unison as they rushed along the walkways, taking out every mercenary they stumbled across. Terra felt like they were only keeping pace with the clone and her men, considering they were constantly being slowed by the mercs trying to kill them, but on the other hand, the trail of people trying to kill them was a surefire sign they were going the right way. So she followed the trail of mercenaries to lead the team down a level and across a tram.

Which was were Glyph came back up. _"Commander, the other you is searching for something 200 meters ahead."_

"Got it," Terra nodded, briefly thanking Glyph before telling her companions "Get ready to run."

"Fighting your own clone, huh?" Solana remarked as they started doing so, "You get up to this kind of thing all the time?"

"No, this one's actually pretty crazy even for us," Garrus told his sister.

_"But useful," Javik said, "If there is a task you do not wish to do, commander, let them handle it."_

"_I don't want to talk about it_!" Terra restated firmly.

"Right," Wrex snarked right back, "So let your clone do it."

Terra shook her head, grumbling whilst still ignoring him, and led them up a flight of stairs to cut across a row of vaults.

Predictably, another squad of mercs came out to bar their path.

_"Take them down _now_," the clone growled over their COMMs, "or I'll have your heads!"_

_"This other Shepard's got a real temper," Cortez commented._

_"I'd quit if she was my commander," Brooks agreed._

"Just shoot them already!" Terra snapped back as she did so herself.

Solana helped clear the way with a series of pistol shots and grenades, allowing them to cut across and get back on the walkways.

No sooner were they back on track than Tali's voice came panicked over the COMMs. _"Terra! They've got us pinned down!"_

"On our way!" Terra quickly answered, racing down the walkway. It didn't take long to catch sight of the room in which Team Mako was indeed completely surrounded. Terra had a way around this. Team Hammerhead was cutting through the room from the other side, so she signaled them to charge in. Then, when they were drawing fire on the opposite flank, she jumped down to sneak attack the sniper on the catwalks and then drop in and start taking out the opposition. "Go!" she told the rest of the squad while she still had the jump on the mercs, "I'll cover you!"

The others quickly started in succession up the nearby ladder to the next series of halls.

Tali stopped in her tracks for a moment when a stray shot cut close to her helmet, turning back to glare at the mercs. "Hey! That's cheating! We're on a _ladder_!"

Terra smirked for half a second at the comment, focused on standing her ground. With the entirety of her team out of range, though, it didn't take long for her to lose her advantage and start getting boxed in. "This is Shepard!" she called into her COMM, "We need—!"

Before she could even finish, the squad made their move, gathering on the balcony overhead and opening fire. All 11 of them at once, unrelenting, only pausing to reload, shooting everything that moved. In five seconds, the entire room was clear.

Once the adrenaline rush wore off, Liara turned to give a sarcastic look to the rest of them. "I don't know. Are you sure you got them all?"

Garrus sighed. "And that was the moment the universe ran out of ammunition."

"On the contrary," Javik said, "I find what primitives lack in aim, they make up for in ammunition."

"Yeah!" James whooped, "That's right! You mess with Shepard, you mess with her friends! …unless we happen to be climbing a ladder!"

"See?" Wrex smirked, "That's what I like about hanging out with you guys. Why shoot something once when you can shoot it _46 more times_?!"

Terra smiled to herself, fighting the urge to laugh with them as she made her own way up the ladder. She loved these guys. "Come on. The…other me can't be far. Keep up the pressure and we'll try to surround her. Let's move!"


	78. Impostors

**It's come to my attention that I may need to warn everybody of something I noticed this week. FanFiction has (completely understandably but perhaps unwisely) decided to condense the Shepard (F) and Shepard (M) labels in the focus characters category into simply Shepard. The stories with Shepard (M) as a focus translated to the new Shepard label just fine, but for some reason, this has made all the stories that had Shepard (F) as a focus character, including all of mine, default change this billing instead to J. Garson (*shrug*). I had to go into the settings for all of my Mass Effect stories and relabel my focus characters and I have since seen that this has affected everyone else's stories. I just want to spread the word to everyone reading who has stories that this applies to or who knows someone who does that they may also need to go into the settings on their stories and manually reset their focus characters unless FanFiction goes in and fixes it somehow. Sorry for the confusion if anyone noticed mine being improperly labeled during that brief period before I noticed the problem and I hope nobody is thrown off in searches for Femshep and Shakarian fics before this is addressed (or at least that my warning of the situation helps to locate them regardless).**

Chapter 78: Impostors

Nothing is ever as it appears  
So few can be allowed trust  
When this at last is made clear  
All will do as they must

Terra was tempted to slow down when they came to halls lined with holos of historical events, but they were definitely in the middle of something far more pressing. She was curious about how much history could be stored down here and why the Council wouldn't want the general public to see it, sure, but she was more curious what the…_other her_ could be looking for amongst it all. The best way to find out was to take care of the problem, so she kept leading Garrus, Wrex, and Solana through the halls to the next major room.

Just as they were approaching the room itself, Ashley came over the COMM to warn them _"This is Hammerhead. Enemies in the room ahead. We'll get their attention."_

Terra carefully approached the door, taking cover against the wall alongside it and waiting for an opening.

"Watch out, they're above us!" a merc finally called to his squad.

Terra seized that opening to creep around the corner and jam her omni-blade into the neck of the first merc she saw. She got spotted, but this still threw their opponents enough that Garrus, Wrex, and Solana could all storm in behind her.

"Behind us, too!" another merc called in warning just as the fight well and truly broke out.

"And they've still got the krogan!" another merc shouted in what was likely withheld panic, "Someone kill him!"

"Someone can try!" Wrex snapped as he charged in.

Terra smirked as she rushed in behind him to find a good cover position. She was tempted to start sniping across the room since Wrex was definitely handling everything up close and Solana worked best at mid-range, even though (or perhaps because) Garrus was already scoping them down. But something intriguing Terra just now realized was that stealth is actually really effective when literally everyone else in the room is being noisy, chaotic, and distracting. So she set to rushing to the other side directly from behind cover and then quietly dispatching every merc that had his back turned with her omni-blade, only bothering to use her ammo on the few snipers that caught sight of her.

Needless to say, the mercenaries did eventually clock that their numbers were going down at a staggeringly alarming rate they hadn't anticipated. "We're surrounded!" one of them finally realized and called to the others, "What are we gonna do?!"

_"This almost doesn't seem fair," Tali admitted, "Should we give them a chance?"_

"What?" Solana countered, "I tie one hand behind my back and Garrus misses every other shot? Wouldn't exactly make much difference!"

_"Speak for yourself, please!" Brooks spoke up, "I'm not even a field agent!"_

_"Just follow Terra's lead and let the rest of us do the heavy lifting," Liara smirked._

Terra promptly leaned out of cover to glare up at her friends. "Do you think all you comedians could start hitting something?!" Just to make her point, she jumped out to tackle the last merc in her range and efficiently take him down.

_"I think we got them all!" Brooks announced after a few seconds to check that the firing had stopped, "Or…the rest of you did."_

"Or," Wrex smirked, "the krogan did."

"Just keep moving," Terra sighed as she located the door into the next section.

It was a matter of three short halls before they reached the next room, not much different from the previous one in layout or enemy count. These mercenaries had apparently been close enough to hear the commotion from the previous skirmish and were on high alert, so there wasn't much call for sneaking in. Especially not when all of them charging from three different angles served to unbalance them just as easily.

"There's too many of them!" one of the mercs finally admitted, "I'm starting to think we picked the wrong Shepard!"

_"Attention, lowlife mercenary wannabes," James smirked in response, "Say 'please' and we'll accept your surrender!"_

_"Say 'pretty please,'" Tali added, "and maybe Wrex will take a break!"_

"Try it!" Wrex shouted between shotgun blasts, "And we'll see!"

_"The Prothean, on the other hand," Javik interjected, "makes no such promises!"_

Terra smirked to herself. They'd have to do missions like this more often. Well…maybe minus the clone part.

The fight became slightly less stacked against the mercenaries' favor when some of them managed to establish a good cover position from all three flanks and then call in drones to start disabling the _Normandy_ crewmen's shields. Garrus' overload trick could dispatch any of these drones in one hit, which worked exactly twice before Glyph decided to fly in and intercede—_"Attention, enemy drones. Please cease all hostile action. I believe we can benefit from a mutual exchange of data. Additionally, the term 'floating butler' does not comprise all of my primary functions. One day, I, too, hope to possess combat capabilities like yourselves."_

Solana withheld the urge to roll her eyes before disabling the last drone and then lobbing a grenade into the mercs' cover, forcing them to scatter right into everyone else's line of fire and end the fight.

_"Commander," Glyph stated as it floated over to Terra, "I have catalogued 18 previously unknown historical events."_

"Where's the target?" Terra asked as she hit the door.

_"She is searching for a secret vault. She did not wish to be disturbed."_

Terra turned to give the drone an incredulous look. "What?"

_"I thought she was you."_

Terra groaned, burying her head in her hands before waving the drone through the opening door. "Go find her again!" She waited for the drone to comply before storming after it. "And if Garrus isn't behind her, IT'S NOT ME!"

_"Stupid machine," Javik groaned._

_"Chatika is so much better at this," Tali agreed._

Terra decided not to escalate this so much that Liara took offense, following the halls in silence until they reemerged in another open sector of vaults. Right as they entered the central chamber, they heard gunshots starting, much bigger and louder than the rest of the mercs. And sure enough, there was the heavy machinery that CAT6 had ordered for exactly this eventuality.

"Atlas on the walkway!" Wrex declared.

_"Team Mako here, we're on it!" Liara called as they moved in._

_"Team Hammerhead," Cortez said, "providing moral support!"_

"800-pound krogan here!" Wrex countered, "Providing the boom!" Just as Team Mako was wearing down its shields and crouching behind a barrier Liara was struggling to maintain, Wrex made good on his word and opened fire.

There was good news and bad news to this particular action. The good news was that he managed to completely disable the mech's shields. The bad news was that the mech's driver took notice of the four of them on the lower level, remembered that Terra was technically the primary target, and abandoned his current fight to drop down and bear down on them.

Garrus groaned as they dove to take cover. "Try to help out your friends and you wind up in a mech fight! YOU'RE WELCOME, TEAM MAKO!"

_"Thanks, guys!" Brooks piped up, "Good luck!"_

Garrus decided not to question if she had somehow missed his blatant sarcasm or was electing to ignore it. He just focused on readying his rifle to start finding weak points in the mech's armor.

"Anyone got any tactical advice?" Terra asked, mostly out of curiosity since "shoot it lots of times" was a perfectly valid strategy for an unshielded opponent.

Wrex, naturally, answered by giving off a battle-cry and charging in to head-butt the thing. Which, to his credit, did unbalance it for a second so he could shotgun it right in the cockpit.

Terra blinked. "Not what I'd consider 'tactical,' but fair enough."

Solana shook her head. "Maybe I should rescind the navigation offer and join your ground team. You clearly need more finesse."

"I'll try not to take that as an insult, sis," Garrus remarked.

She answered with a knowing shrug before sneaking around to a good angle on the mech's core and firing a few incendiary rounds down it.

With that on top of the damage it had already taken, the mech short-circuited and blew.

Wrex laughed as he ducked back. "Love watching those things explode."

Right as they came out of cover and prepared to keep moving, Glyph flew back over from scouting ahead. _"Commander, a large contingent of mercenaries calling themselves 'Razor Squad' are just ahead. They wish to inflict bodily harm on you. Also, I discovered an elcor mating totem in vault 347B! Fascinating!"_

Terra blinked as the drone flew back off to look for the clone again. "Let's focus on the first part of that, shall we?"

"You mean the part where there's a bunch of mercs threatening my girl who are about to have their skulls vented?" Garrus concurred, "Yes, why don't we?"

Solana sighed. "You two are sickeningly perfect for each other."

Terra chose to take her adopted sister's remark as a compliment and led them across the sector to the area now flooded with mercs. Time for another scuffle. For a few seconds, she even wondered if it would've been more fun had said mercs stood a chance.

"I got eyes on Shepard!" one of the mercs called as the fight broke out on all sides. True to his word, Garrus made this one his first target, one quick headshot taking him out of the equation.

_"Team Mako here," James said as their concentrated fire started wearing down the mercs' numbers, "showing Team Hammerhead how it's done!"_

_"Hammerhead here," Ashley countered, "You guys are just copying us!"_

_"Mako here," Liara added, "if we were, we wouldn't be hitting anything!"_

_"Team Prothean here," Javik remarked, "I have a higher body count than all of you combined!"_

Glyph chose that moment to make use of the fact it was still in the room. _"Attention, enemy soldiers. Why do you persist? The Alliance offers a number of benefits and a generous retirement package. After seven years of service, a sabbatical to the planet of your choice can be arranged. I would be happy to discuss—please refrain from shooting at me."_

The mercs did the exact opposite by calling in heavy reinforcements right as they were about to be completely pinned down.

_"Heads up," Cortez warned everyone, "looks like they're getting serious."_

_"Oh, yeah, Esteban?" James smirked, "Then maybe you should start hitting something for a change!"_

_"Biggest target I see is your mouth, Mr. Vega!"_

"I've fought volus bankers tougher than this!" Wrex agreed as he charged in to whack a merc with the stock of his shotgun.

Solana smirked as she leaned out of cover to knife a merc and then shoot down another. "I like you guys! I'm excited to be a part of this!"

_"Attention, enemy soldiers," Glyph cut in again, "You only have a 0.04% chance of surviving this encounter."_

"That drone is giving me a migraine!" one of the mercs growled.

_"He belongs to me!" Liara snapped._

"Put him on a leash!"

_"Glyph, lower their morale!"_

Glyph took that to heart. Terra was astonished info drones were as good at that as she was. _"Attention, enemy soldiers. Your life expectancy is now 15 seconds and dropping. 14…13…12…"_ Just as quickly, though, it diverted its attention as it seemed to receive a call. _"Lieutenant Vega, a volus delivery man is on the line asking for payment."_

_"Tell him they burnt the pepperoni!" James snapped back._

Terra rolled her eyes—though she was also trying not to start snickering—and focused on tracking the last of the opposition. Only one mercenary was left standing…and quickly closing on Garrus' cover. Terra reacted appropriately.

By flinging herself out of cover to charge at the merc and leap up to simultaneously shoot him in the gut and stab him in the chest.

Garrus blinked at this display as she withdrew to catch her breath. "Glad to know it's not just me."

Terra gave him a brief smirk before checking the area. "Looks like we're clear."

"Looks like," Wrex smirked back, "I saved everyone's tails again!"

Terra smiled as she strode past, patting him on the hump. "You keep telling yourself that, big guy." She went over to hit the door. "Hammerhead, Mako, keep pushing ahead."

_"Right!" Brooks said, "I might throw up a bit now, if that's OK with everyone…"_

No one bothered answering her.

It didn't take long to reach the point in the hall where it opened into another room perfect for flanking. One of the mercs stationed there went down all too easy, sending the others scrambling for cover.

"Shepard's still alive!" one of the mercs cried as he took aim on the squad.

_"The next person who says that is fired!" the clone snapped into the CAT6 COMMs._

_"The other you seems to have severe anger issues," Glyph remarked to Terra before heading out to find the clone in question, "She does not care about collateral damage."_

"Yeah, I noticed that," Terra sighed before opening fire.

The fight was over pretty quick. Why did that make her suspicious?

As they were heading through the next hall, Glyph came back again. _"Commander, the other you wishes to pass on a message."_ The drone played an audio file of the clone's voice: _"Shepard, save yourself the trouble. Once I find what I came here for, you won't matter anymore. Now go, drone, deliver it!"_

"Well," Solana sighed as Glyph flew off again, "at least we know she's close."

Terra, though, couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. Their path through his hall seemed unusually quiet. She didn't do silence generally, but this… She finally hit her COMM while they were waiting on a door. "Hammerhead, how far ahead are you? Do you have eyes on the target?"

…

No response.

Now Terra _knew_ something was wrong. "Ash, EDI, Javik, do you copy?!"

"On second thought," Solana admitted as the door opened, "this can't be good."

Ten unsettled seconds later, Garrus caught sight of the others across the way. "There's Team Mako."

_"We'll try to clear a path, commander," Brooks said, "Hammerhead's gone on ahead."_

Something wasn't right here. Terra knew her squad. If they were OK, they'd answer. Liara, James, and Tali weren't contradicting the message, though, so she went along with it for now. Looking at Garrus as they made their way forward, though, she could tell his instincts were right in line with hers.

The way from here was more constricted, no room for flanking or alternate paths to take. Thankfully, that just played to a sniper's strengths, bottlenecking the incoming mercs so that Garrus, Terra, and Solana could easily take down whoever didn't get immediately trampled by Wrex. Terra made sure they were moving in a hurry now. There couldn't be that much more ground to cover before they caught up with the clone, but she didn't want to risk anything as long as the squad was split up, even if she did know that her friends could handle themselves.

"Mako, status report," she finally caved when they were waiting on the next door.

There were a few jumbled words from Brooks along with what sounded like a fight before the signal cut out entirely.

"Mako, come in! Where are you?!"

No response again.

"Uh, Terra?" Solana finally spoke up, "You remember that one time we watched an old human horror vid and we agreed it was a stupid idea to split up because the killer's just gonna pick you off one by one? You don't think splitting up in groups really isn't a way of circumventing that, do you?"

"I want to argue that you're as paranoid as your brother sometimes," Terra answered, "but you've both rubbed off on me."

"They'll be fine if we hurry to catch up with them," Wrex finally asserted.

Terra was inclined to agree but picked up the pace regardless. If her friends were in trouble, she wasn't about to stand back and leave them to it. The mercenary presence in these last few rooms was also disturbingly sparse, which was only setting off even more alarms in her head. Something was _very_ wrong.

As if to prove it, Brooks finally came over the COMM. _"—commander, can you hear me?"_

"We read you, Brooks. What's going on up there?"

_"The clone is jamming our radios. I just cut through. The others are closing in on her, but I'm hit again and pinned down!"_

"We're coming. Find cover." She hurried through the last hall. No mercenaries at all in here. Either they were all backing up the clone for the final showdown or someone had called them off. The second answer made no sense, but her gut was telling her the first answer wasn't right. What was going on?

She got her answer. Halfway through the last room before the main hall that was meant to be the sight of their final stand, a barrier came down to block their path.

"That can't be good," Solana groaned.

Terra quickly hit her COMM again. "Brooks, the vault sealed us in!"

"Is there an override?" Wrex asked.

Garrus quickly scanned the area. "I'm not seeing one."

Now Terra was getting desperate. "Brooks, do you read me?! Is _anyone_ on this frequency?!"

"The short answer is no. They're not."

Without even thinking, Terra drew her pistol and opened fire on the source of the voice. She groaned to herself when she realized the barrier was blocking that, too.

Her clone stood there, shaking her head at them dismissively. "The longer answer involves your friends being trapped in iridium vaults and forgotten for…well, forever."

Terra holstered her pistol but made a point of glaring down their opponent instead. "They're not so easily forgotten. And neither am I. Even if you take the ship, the crew's gonna know. The Alliance will stop you."

The clone gave off a considering look. "What do you think, _Staff Analyst Brooks_? Will the Alliance stop us?"

And there was the dagger they'd been expecting. Brooks stepped up behind the clone, propping an arm on her shoulder. "Well, I wouldn't know." She turned to glare mockingly at Terra. "I don't actually work for them."

Honestly, there was a very small part of Terra that was genuinely impressed Brooks had managed to fool them all for so long, considering Terra's instincts, Garrus' detective skills, and EDI's…well, everything. The other 99% of her was pure _outrage_, so much so that she practically started kicking the barrier and screaming "You deceitful, barefaced—!" After that, it descended to more turian insults that Garrus and Solana both decided were best left not translated. "Who are you really then?! And do you honestly think we won't hunt you down?!"

Brooks shrugged off the tirade. "My name doesn't matter. I never use the same one for more than a few days. And if the Illusive Man hasn't found me yet, you never will."

That did it. The fire in Terra's glare now could rival a sun. "You're _Cerberus_?!"

"Was. Mr. Illusive and I exactly see eye-to-eye. He's a ruthless, indoctrinated madman. Whereas I'm just ruthless."

"If it's a difference of ideals, you still could've come to _me_. I'm sure everyone in Cerberus knows how much I've had it out for the guy over the past year. We could've worked together to take him down."

"In a way, we already did. I was the one who put together all the dossiers for your little 'suicide mission.'"

Terra's enraged look gave in slightly to amazement. "The Collector base?"

Brooks nodded. "There was the salarian doctor, the asari justicar, the turian…" She turned to smirk at Garrus. "Nice to finally meet you, by the way, _Archangel_."

"Charmed," Garrus sneered.

Brooks simply turned to glare at Terra again. "They were all mistakes! We were a pro-human group turning to aliens for support. I decided I wouldn't stand for it. So I bided my time. And when I found another you who agreed…" She turned to smirk at the clone. "…I woke her up."

Terra sighed. _Worse_ than the Illusive Man, then. And responsible for this entire debacle, at that. Had the clone genuinely agreed or had she been corrupted by her "savior"? Not that it mattered now. "Well, I'll give you this much: the plan was brilliant. Did you even need to play us?"

"Honestly? The deception was a fallback. All we needed was your Spectre codes."

_Now_ Terra could feel the pieces fitting together. The door C-Sec had locked down, the one that she'd had to override to cross the gap to the skycar lot—Brooks had been in the system the whole time. She could've easily opened it for her, but instead she'd remotely copied the code that Terra used to cracked it. And then _she'd_ been the one to trip every alarm on the block.

"But then you survived the hit and tracked the guns. So I had to tie up loose ends."

Terra groaned. "The arms dealer." That one was obvious in hindsight. Brooks had coaxed them into sending her through the vent so that she could get to the panic room first. No one else could've gotten through the door before they disabled the security anyway. It was just a matter of hiding a weapon or salvaging one from storage, buying time by tripping the silent alarm, and then playing dumb.

"But then your AI just had to go and recover the data! So here we are, forced to…_contain_ the situation."

Garrus did Terra a favor and stepped up to take over the threats now. "You do realize that the minute—_the second_—we get out of this, the squad is going to collectively rip out your vertebrae one by one and beat you to death with them!"

"And then grind those bones to dust!" Wrex concurred.

Solana scoffed. "And that's if _I_ don't get my talons on you first."

"That sounds very dramatic," Brooks said, "And if someone like, say, Commander Shepard made the threat, I'd be worried." She turned to sneer at Terra. "But you're not Shepard anymore."

"You had Miranda, I have her," the clone remarked as she turned to access a nearby terminal, "Mine has more bite."

Terra saw fit to debate that, but the clone's activity caught her attention. "What are you doing?"

"Setting things right. Remember this?" The clone turned on a holo display of Terra's Spectre initiation.

_"You are the first human Spectre, commander," the asari Councilor had said, "This is a great accomplishment for you and your entire species."_

The clone turned to glare at Terra. "Except you never cared about your species, did you? It's always been about the turians for you. You turned your back on your own people, saved more alien lives than human, and then painted yourself as a hero for it!"

Terra glared right back. "Something that you'd understand if you were on Mindoir, if you'd had a turian pull you out of there. If you were anything like me, you'd see that every life counts, no matter what they are."

The clone dismissed the entire argument. "See, I kind of enjoy being not like you. Proves I'm more than just some 'cheap imitation.' I mean, it's not like Cerberus copied everything. For one thing…they couldn't duplicate our handprint." She held up her hand, prying off her glove to show the subtle differences in her skin. "Turns out life gives it its shape, not DNA. Which is a problem for you." She accented this by leaning back on the scanner by the console.

_"Spectre access accepted. Biometric identifier updated."_

Now Terra saw the problem. She almost started panicking as the implications settled in.

The clone smirked at Terra's obvious alarm and turned to the door. "Now, if you'll excuse me, the _Normandy_ needs its captain."

"Farewell," Brooks waved tauntingly, "I guess this is where _legends_ go to die."

Right on cue, the vault sealed itself.

Solana: So…that went well.

Garrus: Clearly one of our finest moments right there, yeah.

Wrex: Refresh my memory. Didn't we used to win these things back in the old days?

Terra: She's so stuck up and vindictive. I'm not like that, am I?

Garrus: What? No, of course not, honey, furthest thing from it.

Solana: Uh, Terra? Crazy thought, but shouldn't we focus on the impregnable vault we've been sealed inside _forever_?!

Terra: You'd just think there'd be a bit of me in there.

Garrus: Well, there's a bit of your sense of humor, I guess, but I stand by my sentiment that you're better looking than her.

Wrex: Is that genuinely in response to the attitude or just because you got the hots for this one?

Solana: Not a lot of air in here either. Between the four of us, maybe an hour if we're lucky? …and take shallow breaths?

Terra: I mean, it does count for something that you only have eyes for me even if I had an identical twin.

Wrex: Right. Take the wins where you can find them.

Garrus: She does have a knack for balancing me that way. Just another thing I love.

Terra: Hmm…you know, I honestly wouldn't mind being stuck in here if it was just the two of us…

Solana: TERRA!

Terra: _What_?! …oh, right. Glyph! You still out there?!

Fortunately for them, Glyph was not only nearby but also able to hear through the walls, abandoning its scouting efforts to float over to the vault. "Yes, commander?"

"Unlock this thing and go find the others. No one steals my ship. Not even me."


	79. Piracy

Chapter 79: Piracy

The plunder of a castle  
Does not a king make

It took nearly an hour to locate the vaults the rest of the squad had been stuck in and find their way back to the hole they entered through. By the time they had crawled their way back out, the skycars they'd arrived in had disappeared, presumably having been apprehended by the CAT6 mercs to cover their tracks.

Presumably thanks to EDI's quick thinking once they were back in a section of the archives that again had working COMMs, though, Joker promptly arrived in a skycar of his own to pick them up. "I've got room for Shepard plus two. And pick fast because the other Shepard is stealing my ship!"

Terra quickly climbed into the passenger seat. "Wrex, you're with us." Garrus (not even needing to be called to know, obviously) and Wrex clambered into the back seat. Just as they were about to take off, though, Terra glanced back at the others and saw them all sulking. "What?"

"Well, I wanted to go," Solana "whined."

"Tell me about it," James shook his head, "I never seem to get picked."

Terra shook her head at them all. "Joker's coming back for you! Just get your own transport or wait five minutes!" Before this could turn into an argument, she turned to hurry Joker and they took off.

"This is why I hate shore leave," Joker shook his head as they raced towards the docks, "I swear, you park the ship for _five minutes_…!"

"Can you contact C-Sec and warn them the ship's being stolen?" Terra suggested, "Get them to deny the departure request or even remotely initiate the lockdown?"

"Tried. All the COMMs in the area are being jammed. Probably to make it easier for them to steal me ship!"

"We'll stop them, Joker," Terra assured her pilot, "We just have to—" That's when she realized something. "Wait a minute! If you're here, where's Violet?!"

"Relax!" Joker waved her off, "Vi's been through enough, I'm not risking putting her through more. I hit all the locks in the apartment."

"You mean the apartment that 'Brooks' has been inside of and that's security is synched to the biometrics that the clone just jacked?!"

Joker froze. He hadn't realized that. "…uh—"

Terra all but flung herself at the pilot before Garrus reached over to hold her back. "Terra, calm down! She knows how to hide and all the mercs will be guarding the docks by now. Joker hasn't been gone that long. She'll be fine."

"She better be!" Terra snapped, "'Cause if anything happens to her, I'm killing Joker first."

Joker knew her well enough not to take the threat more seriously than some angry posturing, yet he still noticeably slumped in his seat.

It was less than a minute later that they were in sight of the docks. The second Terra caught sight of mercenaries milling around her ship, all the rage inside her came to a peak and she drew her pistol to make sure it was loaded and ready. "This ends now. No matter what it takes."

"Yeah!" Joker jumped to cheer her on, "You go kill the crap out of…you!" Of course, though, it wasn't as simple as driving right up and he had to drop them off at the end of the dock. "The defense systems are active. Any closer and they'll open fire."

"We got this," Terra promised as she jumped out, Garrus and Wrex right behind her, "Go back and get the others."

"Right. They can't have gone far. …unless they called a cab or something." With that, he took off again, racing back to where they'd left the rest of the squad.

Terra started running with an urgency she hadn't felt before. Somehow this mission felt like the stakes were higher than any other. Later, she'd reason that out into a combination of her beloved ship being a symbol of hope to the galaxy and a home to her crew and her only means of protecting the galaxy she couldn't bear to lose. Right now, she stormed right down the docks, shooting down every merc she found in agreement with Wrex's proclamation of "I was hoping we'd get to shoot something!"

Right as they got past the first squad of mercs, though, Garrus noticed something wrong. "The engines are starting up!"

"They're taking off?!" Terra demanded as they made their way down the landing halfway along the docks, "When we want to do that, there's a half hour of pre-flight checks! They can just gun the engine and go?!"

"Oh, you didn't hear?" Wrex asked, "I complained about the wait a few times and Tali told me half of those checks are just to make the captain feel better."

"And no one told _me_?!"

"Maybe we should just skip the checks from now on!" Garrus remarked.

"I am seriously considering it right now!" Now she was annoyed, something that prompted her to make use of their limited element of surprise to snipe a few of the mercenaries in the last squad barring their path. This did serve to startle them, giving Garrus a chance to follow through with a couple headshots of his own before Wrex could go charging in.

"It's Shepard!" one of the mercs shouted, "Radio a warning!"

"We can't!" another answered, "COMMs are jammed, remember?!"

_Looks like your brilliant plan came back to bite you,_ Terra smirked to herself before firing a shotgun into her next target. The mercs put up a good fight, but they never stood a chance. Even if Wrex hadn't been there tearing them to shreds, Terra and Garrus together could've taken out twice this many in less than two minutes. In no time at all, they were charging up the steps to the _Normandy_'s airlock and heading in.

Right as they reached the inner door, Traynor was coming out. "And I don't even—" She froze when she saw them, specifically when she saw Terra. "Wait. _What_?! You…you were just on the _Normandy_! You…you fired me! 'Dishonorable discharge for conduct unbecoming'! You kicked me off the ship with barely enough time to grab my toothbrush!" Just to prove her point, she held up the toothbrush in question like Terra would wield a weapon.

Terra suppressed the urge to glare at her. "What—I can't fire you without a disciplinary hearing, Traynor! …and seriously? The first thing you grabbed is your toothbrush?"

"It's a Cision Pro Mark 4. It uses tiny mass effect fields to break up plaque and massage the gums." Then she started putting the pieces together. "Wait…if that wasn't you, then—"

"She's got an evil Cerberus clone," Wrex explained as Garrus hacked through the door, "You stay on the _Normandy_ long enough, you get used to stuff like this."

Traynor just looked at him in confusion before turning to Terra, dumbfounded.

"Look, we can explain later," Terra waved her off, heading for the door, "For now—" She stopped in her tracks when she reached the door. Hacking it had only activated the locks. "It's sealed!"

"The engines are online!" Garrus said, "They're about to take off!"

"Surely there's still someone onboard who can help us."

"No," Traynor stepped up, "they're all on shore leave. I was only here because I helped with the retrofits."

Terra then got her idea. "You were. You were! You know this ship inside out! Tell me there's another way in!"

Traynor took a second to think it over before nodding. "There's an emergency exit hatch for evacuations." She knelt down, fiddling with the flooring. "It should be right…here!"

Terra knelt down to inspect the door as Traynor lifted the tiles covering it. "Manual lock. And it's only meant to be opened from the inside." She turned to Garrus, the one there with the most tech knowledge. "Any ideas?"

Garrus gave the locks a quick scan. "It's not automated, we can't hack in. We might be able to unhook the latch, though, if we had a very small, very precise mass effect field."

3…2…1… All eyes turned to Traynor.

Traynor looked between them reluctantly before holding up her toothbrush and turning it on.

Two minutes later, Terra was leading Garrus and Wrex on a crawl through the ducts. "If you'd told me this morning that a toothbrush was going to save the _Normandy_, I'd have been very skeptical."

"If it's any consolation," Garrus remarked, "I'm pretty sure we broke it getting the hatch open."

"Oh. Remind me to reimburse her for that."

"Right. I'll make a note of it."

It was about then that they drew close to the CIC. Terra started moving carefully towards the hatch—

"What did they size this shaft for, keepers?!" Wrex complained.

"Quiet!" Terra hissed, "They'll hear us!"

"Yeah, yeah, get off my tail."

Terra rolled her eyes at him before returning to the quiet crawl towards the hatch. They were at the space in the ducts that ran under the walkway from the CIC to the bridge, so she could hear the mercs chattering above them.

"Alright, you heard her. Find Shepard—the real one!"

"Hey, wait. What did she mean 'slow her down'? We're allowed to kill Shepard if we have to, right?"

"She said 'slow her down' because she thinks we're cannon fodder!"

"…oh."

Terra smirked to herself. The clone and Brooks knew they were aboard, apparently, but these unfortunate mercs had no way of knowing how close. She came to the hatch, right under the stairs, and did a quick examination of the hatch. Coming up with an idea, she drew her pistol and waited, hand on the button to open the hatch. When one mercenary came close enough, she fired between the steps in the grating to lower his shields, slammed the hatch open, and then jumped to drive her omni-blade into his chest.

"WATCH OUT!" a mercenary across the room cried out in response as Garrus and Wrex leapt out behind her, "THEY'RE IN THE CIC!"

Too late to stop them. By the time the mercs had the sense and line of sight with which to open fire, Terra, Garrus, and Wrex had all found cover to start tearing through them.

Wrex started laughing delightedly when they had their opposition's shields collectively worn down enough for him to charge in, shotgun blazing yet again. "HAHA! I've always wanted to do this!"

"You've always wanted to have a fight in the CIC of my ship?!" Terra demanded.

"And it isn't even my birthday!"

"Definitely one of my favorite places to fight," Garrus concurred, "Right there above the gardens and below the electronic shops."

"And antique shops, as I recall," Terra smirked.

"But only if they're classy!"

Terra could always count on Garrus (and apparently on Wrex) to lift her spirits. The mercenary presence was relatively light, so the fight was over quickly. She was starting to trade her buried-under-layers-of-infuriation fear of loss for hopeful anticipation. "Looks like we've got this. EDI! This is the real Terra! We've cleared the deck! See if you can track the clone and lock down the ship!"

…silence.

"…EDI?"

Garrus winced. "Sounds like she's got problems of her own."

Terra sighed. "We better move fast." She headed straight for the elevator. Still functioning. Good. She signaled Garrus to step in and program the interface to return to the last floor it was on, taking them down to deck 5.

Ironically, it was only now that they all felt like this elevator was as slow as the one on the SR-1.

Smirking at that thought, Garrus leaned against the wall. "So. Anyone wanna talk about their people's history?"

"No," Wrex immediately declined.

Garrus gave him a look. "So I'm the only one who misses when we used to chat between missions back in the old days?!"

"Yep."

"…so disappointing."

Terra sighed, laying her hand on his arm. "Don't worry, hon, you've always got me."

"Terra, dear, we're way past 'chatting.'"

She shrugged. "Doesn't mean we can't." She then turned to the door, finding they had arrived at their destination, and hit the button, stepping out with her weapon at the ready.

The deck was eerily quiet. Until someone stepped out from behind the armory. Someone who looked exactly like Terra…right down to her hairstyle and armor (though this one luckily had a blue N7 stripe rather than a red one, as if to differentiate them).

"Alright, that's just creepy!" Terra snapped, immediately raising her pistol and opening fire.

The clone shot back, forcing them both to dive for cover. "You wanna stop shooting up my ship?!"

"It's not _your_ ship!"

"It will be! I've taken your name, your Spectre rank, even your fingerprints!"

Terra growled as she stood up and started closing in to flank the clone's chosen cover. "And then you left me to die…only I didn't! And do you really think some fake fingerprints would ever fool the Council, Hackett, Primarch Victus? You don't think your little anti-alien view is gonna get you exposed the first time you talk to a turian or someone asks you about Palaven?" She could've kept going, but she opted to sneak up to the crate her clone was hiding behind… "How's that big plan looking now?!" …and whip around to take aim behind it. But there was no one there.

Suddenly, a battle-cry went off behind her as the clone jumped from the other side to drive her own omni-blade down into Terra's back.

"TERRA!" Garrus called out the second he saw what was happening.

Between her mate's warning and her own instincts, Terra moved just in time. Whirling around, she drew her own omni-blade and countered the attempted strike. The two wound up in a deadlock for five seconds straight before Terra was finally able to push her clone away.

"I'd stop now if I were you!" Brooks' voice came from across the deck…dragging Violet with her.

Terra reacted as any sister would: making a note to herself to tell of Joker later and then jumping to her sister's defense. "Vi!"

Brooks responded by tightening her hold on Violet and arming her weapon, enough threat to stop Terra in her tracks. "Since you're so insistent on spoiling our plans, it's time we try something different."

Garrus growled even as he lowered his own weapon. "This is low. Even for you."

"You don't know me as well as you thought you did," Brooks sneered, turning her glare in his direction, "Now drop—!"

She didn't even get to finish the ultimatum before Violet shocked them all (except Garrus, who, of course, had baited Brooks into giving an opening for exactly this) by stomping on Brooks' ankle, hooking her foot around to unbalance her, and then simultaneously throwing her head back into her captor's nose and elbowing her in the stomach. Considering Brooks was in armor, it was likely more shock than pain that caused her to let go, but that was enough for Violet to scramble away. Even a skilled infiltrator like Brooks clearly hadn't anticipated that a frightened former slave whose greatest accomplishments were all musical could fight her way out of that position, let alone competently.

Garrus smirked as Violet got behind them. "You picked that up even quicker than your sister."

Terra realized what had happened now and turned to give him a look. "_You_—?!" She figured now wasn't really the time for a debate on the matter, though, and shoved Violet into the elevator. "We'll talk about this later!"

No sooner had she said so than the mercs arrived and the fight broke out.

Terra barely made it back to cover before the bullets started flying. The mercs, as usual, proved no match for the three of them, but the clone and Brooks somehow _were_. Brooks was evasive and manipulative and resourceful (in combat as well as reality), and the clone had the same skills Terra had as if they were a hard-coded genetic trait. True, the clone hadn't had such a long history in which to develop those skills, but the hardware it was employing made up for that in a way, especially considering the grenades came in clusters that left trails of fire wherever they went off. It wasn't looking like this fight would be as fun and simple as any of the ones in the archives.

Then, as if to disprove that notion, Terra's COMM sparked on. _"Vega to Lola, do you copy?"_

"Lola here," she answered as she rolled out of the way of a grenade, "What's your status?"

_"We just managed to cut through the jamming so EDI could reinforce our COMMs," Liara explained, "Solana is securing us transport so we can try to catch up with you before they leave Citadel airspace."_

_"Uh, speaking of which, the _Normandy_'s prepping for an FTL jump," Joker piped in, "Can you get to the cockpit? Like _soon_?"_

"No good," Terra responded as she popped out of cover just long enough to shotgun a merc, "We're occupied in the shuttle bay."

_"Wait!" Violet jumped in, "I'm already in the elevator and you cleared the CIC! I can get there!"_

"Vi, no! I'm not putting you in danger after what just happened!"

_"It wasn't exactly a close call. I can handle myself now, at least if they don't see me coming."_

_"What, Vi's on the ship after all?!" Joker jumped in, "How—" He sighed. "I'm never gonna hear the end of this one, am I?"_

_"Doesn't matter. At least not if I can help. And since you're not exactly in a position to stop me, you're just gonna have to trust me."_

"I do," Terra said, "I just can't lose you again."

_"Why do you think I had Garrus show me how to fight? I got this one."_

_"Don't worry, commander," Cortez added, "We can back her up with plan B."_

_"Right," Joker countered, "…hold on, what exactly is 'plan B'?"_

At this point, Terra figured her best course of action would be to focus on the fight. She caught sight of the clone amid the skirmish and rushed in to flank her. This worked right up until she got close. She managed to take down her clone's shields, but the clone then proceeded to make her regret coming so close by turning to make use of her omni-blade again. Terra once again countered it, but it was a serious test of strength to finally throw her off and get out of the exposed position this had left her in before the clone could fire back. Wrex charged in after her to fire a few rounds into the clone's armor and disable her, only for the clone to promptly stagger him with a concussive round and then withdraw to use a medi-gel pack on herself. It was safe to say the fight wasn't going well.

_"Don't worry, Terra, we're moving out now," Solana assured her over the COMM._

_"So are we," Cortez said, "Hang tight, we're gonna draw their fire. Hopefully, we can distract the pilot long enough for Violet to sneak in behind them."_

_"Wait, 'plan B' stands for 'bait'?!" Joker demanded, "We're _bait_?! AGAIN?!"_

_"No, no," Solana said, "Just you two. The rest of us are trying to sneak onboard and give Terra some reinforcements."_

_"Oh, right, 'cause that makes it _so_ much better!"_

_"Hey, you didn't see EDI shut down and then reboot herself cut off from the ship. That's gonna haunt me."_

Terra was kind of glad she missed that part and felt bad for EDI being cut off from her ship. She also didn't like the sound of this plan. Either way, she was in the middle of something far more pressing. She finally managed to corner Brooks and wear her down only for the spy to cloak herself and fall back, presumably so the clone could spend another medi-gel pack on her. Terra found this particularly infuriating but told herself that those supplies couldn't last much longer. They just had to—

_"Everyone hang on!" Cortez called, "We're moving in!"_

Right on cue, the ship lurched.

Terra bunkered down in a corner, hanging onto the walls to keep herself steady. The cybernetics in her hearing allowed her to catch the entirety of the following conversation.

"What's going on up there?!" the clone demanded, "Get us out of the nebula and jump to FTL!"

_"We can't," a frustrated merc answered over the COMM, "A skycar keeps blocking our path."_

"Then shoot it."

Terra could feel the subtle vibrations of the batteries her mate had so carefully tended for so long going off. They went off more than once, indicating they weren't hitting their intended target. She wasn't sure whether to worry about the ensuing collateral damage or scoff at how terrible a shot that pilot must be if the batteries _Garrus_ had calibrated weren't striking true.

_"Can't you guys weave a bit more?" Solana finally jumped back in, apparently concerned that their dodges were cutting it too close._

_"We need to stay within 30 degrees of the nose to block course plotting," Joker answered._

_"That makes us a perfect target!" Cortez snapped._

_"No, that makes us the _bait_! Do you want me to drive?!"_

_"NO!"_

Luckily, the clone finally seemed to realize that, perfect target or not, shooting the skycar wasn't working. With a growl of exasperation, she told the pilot "Launch the shuttle and blow that thing out of the sky!"

In response, the shuttle bay opened to launch the Kodiak, which promptly started to chase Cortez and Joker's skycar away.

Right as they lost their position jamming the navigation, though, the plan worked. Violet had moved quietly and carefully down the CIC to the bridge doors. Creeping up behind the pilot, she got the drop on him and only needed to pickpocket his weapon and give him one sharp whack in the head to eliminate the problem entirely.

Then again, this meant that there was now no one steering the ship, which immediately started turning on its side.

"VI, THAT'S NOT HELPING!" Terra instantly called down the COMM when the entire deck started shifting to one side.

"SORRY!" Violet called back, lunging for the controls, "I'm turning on the autopilot!"

To her credit, she did manage this, the ship almost immediately righting itself.

"…thank you," Terra groaned as she regained her footing.

Garrus, though, couldn't help but notice that the entire deck was still uneasy due to another unresolved issue from Violet's assault. "Watch out! The bay door's still open!"

_"Don't worry, that part just makes the rest of the plan easier!" _That was when two other skycars flew up and, before automatically parking themselves, dropped Solana into the shuttle bay with the rest of the squad behind her. "Guess who's back!"

Just like that, the entire _Normandy_ squad was back in the game together. In less than ten seconds, every merc on the deck was down and it was just a matter of pinning down Brooks and the clone.

"You ruined everything!" Brooks snapped between dodges, "My plan was perfect!"

"Except for the part where you're losing!" Ashley retorted.

"I _am_ the _Normandy_!" EDI affirmed, "And I will see you dead!"

"And I am Tali'Zorah vas Normandy of Rannoch!" Tali concurred, "And _this_ is what we do to pirates where I come from!"

A few bursts of combined fire forced Brooks into retreat. The clone took the front in her place with two medi-gel packs left. "And _I_ am Commander Shepard!"

"Oh, please!" Wrex scoffed, "The real Shepard would've blown my head off by now!"

"My team's just as good as yours!"

"'Team'?!" Liara sneered, "You have minions! And in case you haven't noticed, you've run out!" She accented this statement with a warp blast.

The clone flipped to dodge the hit, but it still drove her back and forced her to use another medi-gel. Down to one. "I'm the one who can stop this war! _She's_ just a lost little orphan with a gun and a few scars!"

"That's just it," Terra stepped up, "I found my purpose as an orphan. Found that gun at home with my family. You know where I got those scars? On Mindoir, on Palaven, on Elysium, on Eden Prime. And on Feros, Noveria, Virmire, Ilos, Alchera, Horizon, Menae, Tuchanka, Rannoch, and Thessia! I earned these scars protecting the galaxy! You think you're better just because you don't have the 'baggage' that drives me? Come out and prove it!"

It was just as she delivered the taunt that Brooks struck. Coming out of a cloak to surprise attack from behind, she could easily have disabled at least one of them if not taken out all their shields. But Javik apparently had four eyes for a reason because he caught sight of her, whipping around to slam her fiercely with a biotic strike.

All this happened in the space of three seconds. That was all the clone needed to jump out. Laying down one last torrent of grenades to scatter the squad, she dove to spend her last medi-gel pack on Brooks before turning her furious attention squarely on her counterpart. With the rest of the squad temporarily out of reach as the grenades went off in a wave, the clone pounced.

So hard it sent them both tumbling down the open ramp.

Terra just barely caught herself halfway down the slope, fortunately landing in the half of the roll where she was on top and able to deliver a few solid blows to her clone. The clone recovered quickly, kicking her in the stomach hard enough to throw her onto her back so it could get up and retaliate.

That was when the ship veered to one side to avoid a collision, unbalancing the ramp just enough to send them both falling towards the edge. They both managed to catch the edge, just barely, but they were barely hanging on and had nothing with which to leverage themselves back up.

The clone took a moment amidst the struggling to turn and glare at Terra. "Look at you. What makes you so special? Why you and not me?!"

As if to answer this question more eloquently than words ever could, that was when the squad abandoned the struggle with Brooks to rush in. Garrus practically dove for it to get to his fiancé, the others promptly forming a line behind him with Wrex holding on at the end to make sure no one went over the edge.

"I've got you," the turian sniper told his human as he took her by the hand and dragged her back up, "I won't let you fall."

"We helped, too, you know!" Solana called from just behind him.

Terra smirked as she came back up the ramp. "Thanks." As she regained her footing, she turned to look back at the clone. It was meant to be gloating, but then she saw where the clone was looking.

Having witnessed the _Normandy_ crew's combined efforts to pull Terra back, Garrus' words probably having the greatest effect, the clone had looked back for Brooks. The infiltrator had taken all of two seconds to look regretful before turning her back on her partner.

Terra distantly noticed that some of her friends were indeed asking what to do about the clone now. After seeing this, Terra felt her earlier suspicions justified. The clone had been through all this, probably mostly through prodding from Brooks herself, because she had felt hard done by. The truth was that she _had been_. Because of Cerberus. Terra couldn't help but think that perhaps the similarities truly did run deeper…perhaps this was a grim vision of what might have become of her had she not found Palaven or the _Normandy_ or even a way out of that dark hollow on Mindoir. Maybe Brooks could be so cold, but Terra couldn't turn her back on that. Not if there was a chance to redeem it.

So she ignored her friends' astonishment and scattered silent protests to approach the clone. "Take my hand!"

The clone simply glowered at her. "And then?"

"And then you live!"

"…for what?" With that, the clone let go, falling to her death in the Wards below.

Garrus watched his mate fall into stunned silence, finally drawing closer to lay a comforting hand on her arm and draw her away from the ramp. Whatever the outcome, it was over.

In ten minutes, Joker and Cortez had come back aboard. Cortez immediately started surveying the damages incited by the attempted piracy, finally announcing "They weren't here long enough to do any major damage…though I'll need some help from James cleaning up the damage to the shuttle bay."

"Plus, the CIC is full of dead bodies, exploded monitors, and spent thermal clips," Tali sighed, "An engineer's work is never done."

"Not to mention they overloaded the heat diffusion system firing at us," Joker shook his head, "Don't know if you noticed, but shuttle guy pulled us through some insane stunt flying to get out of there."

Cortez shrugged. "It was nice getting to fly something a little more maneuverable than the Kodiak."

"And EDI?" Terra asked.

EDI stepped up, smiling as her systems reconnected. "I am once again in full control of the _Normandy_. Thank you for asking."

Terra smiled. "Good to hear. What about the mercs? Any survivors?"

Violet beamed triumphantly as she stepped in. "Just one unconscious, not-very-good pilot."

"And _her_," Joker sneered, gesturing to Brooks as Cortez brought her up in cuffs, "Alliance is taking her to a high-security facility. Maybe she can give up some dirt on Cerberus."

Brooks smirked. "I'll be more than happy to cooperate with the authorities."

Terra immediately scowled at her. "_Maya_, I know that voice."

"Do you really?"

"In case you haven't noticed, you'd have a pretty hard time getting off this deck any other way. I'd go along with it if I were you."

Brooks scoffed. "You're not afraid I'll escape? Come back for revenge?"

"You're smart enough to see how that would end, too."

Brooks looked between them all. If she was intimidated, she didn't show it. But it was safe to say they all by now shared Terra's opinion that it was Brooks and not the clone who was to blame for all of this and had to pay for it. She knew better than to go against them. Now or ever. "…_she_ wouldn't have let me live."

Terra wasn't so sure anymore, but there was no point in doubting it now that _she_ was gone. Instead, she stepped back, casting a saddened glance at the floor. "You can't clone everything."

Brooks simply looked at her before letting Cortez shove her aside.

Garrus sighed as he laid his hand on Terra's shoulder again. "I'm sorry."

Solana shook her head. "_I'm_ sorry we didn't shoot her."

Terra glared at her briefly before smirking and delivering a playful nudge.

"It is not too late to throw her out the airlock," Javik suggested.

Violet blinked behind him. "You know, ordinarily, I'd object to that…"

Wrex laughed. "I like this kid!"

By the time the banter wore down, the _Normandy_ was safely returning to its dock. Terra took satisfaction in walking down the ramp this time and knowing that the whole incident was behind them and the _Normandy_ was safe.

"Worst," Tali spoke for all of them, "Shore leave. _Ever_."

Terra laughed. "Come on. Maybe we can catch some actual time off now. No explosions or anything. Just us."

"Don't know about 'no explosions,'" Wrex shrugged, "but…'just us' sounds…perfect."

"Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it," Garrus said, "…but it's worth a shot."


	80. Back to Basics

I am SO sorry this took so long! Hopefully, the fact that it's a bit longer than I meant for it to be can make up for that. Don't worry, I'm trying to catch up and we're nearing the homestretch. In the meantime, please enjoy.

Chapter 80: Back to Basics

The fiercest storm can be weathered  
The tallest mountain climbed  
The wildest battle can be won  
With those we love by our side

Terra returned to the apartment immediately to change out of her armor back into civvies, something she was remarkably relieved by, and collapse on the bed for a few minutes to revel in the fact that she finally had a moment's peace. The _Normandy_ was safely back in its dock to return to repairs. However, given the delay in starting those repairs and the added damage caused by the firefights in the CIC and the shuttle bay that the poor techs were now going to have to fix, shore leave had been extended by a couple days.

For once, Terra didn't mind.

She had actually dozed off for a grand total of two hours before she heard a knock on the door. She smirked as she got up and made her way to the stairs. She didn't bother going down, though, merely sitting down on the top step and calling down to the door with a smirk. "You don't have to knock, Garrus."

The door opened to let her turian in. "It's just polite," he commented with a shrug.

She shook her head. "We passed that 15 years ago, hon."

He smiled as he came over to lean on the railing and look up at her. "So what do you propose we do with this newfound free time?"

She smiled back, leaning casually on the railing herself. "Joker said something about using the apartment for a party—which would certainly be a nice change of pace—and everyone really wanted to just hang out while we have the chance and aren't being shot at. …but since we've just gained another day or two to do that, maybe we should…_take advantage_ of it."

Garrus started coming upstairs to sit on the stair in front of hers. "Just the two of us?"

"Just you and me for one day."

"No Sol, no Vi, no crew interrupting?"

"No Reapers, no Cerberus, no galaxy in peril."

He drew closer to her, taking her hands in his. "A taster of what's to come?"

She laid her head on his. "Of how it always should have been."

So they kissed for a moment before moving from the stairs to her room. They took a few more moments to kiss as they sat down on her bed. Then they simply sat there, leaning on each other, his talons sifting through the hair draped over her left shoulder as her fingers traced the plates on his other hand. Much as she normally hated silence, she could live with it if it meant just being in her mate's arms in peace.

The day passed all too quickly with embraces such as this one, conversations about nothing, merely being lost in each other's eyes again, or kissing each other senseless. They finally fell asleep together on her bed, both of them blissfully dreamless for once.

Garrus woke up the next morning to find Terra already out of bed. As he came downstairs to look for her, he found her painting away in the living room. He smirked as he leaned on the stairway rail again and watched her.

She smirked when she sensed his eyes on her. "You don't have to stand all the way back there if you just want to watch."

He snickered to himself before coming over to her. "How long have you been up?"

"Two hours, I think? I didn't want to disturb you."

He started inspecting the painting. "That long? It looks like you've barely started."

"Oh, no, I started this one ten minutes ago. _That_'s the one I spent the first hour on." She gestured with her brush towards the holo-table behind the kitchen.

Garrus cast a curious glance that way. He couldn't help smiling to see a full-scale painted version of the drawing he'd been carrying for 16 years, the Palaven landscape they had come to know each other by, mounted on the wall in place of the "abstract" that had been there. "It's almost as good as the original. Kind of makes me homesick."

"You and me both. Don't worry, it's not even done. I put it up anyway because I felt like it belonged there, but I still have to wait for it to dry to add the second coat, a few contrast layers, some detail and shading—"

"Well, I'll give you this much, you never go in halfway."

"Not on something like _that_, never."

Now that he said the comment, though, it occurred to him to glance up at where her current project would eventually go. He was fairly startled to find the walls on the balcony already bare. "Wait, why did you already clear all the space if you just started?"

Terra shrugged. "Like I said, I only spent the first hour on the painting. After that, I felt like getting as much done as I could while I was waiting for it to settle, so I started taking down the old ones. I still had to wait for it to dry a little bit before I could hang it up properly, so I figured I might as well just go out and find a place to sell the old ones—they went surprisingly fast as some interior decorating place just outside the building—and I spent all the credits from one of them on groceries so I could come back and make us both breakfast because I was starving—"

"Wait, what?" He immediately turned and went into the kitchen, finding that he could, in fact, smell a Palaven meal slowly cooking in the oven. "When did you learn how to fix turian food?"

"I have handled it before when I was growing dextro veggies behind your house…and I had a lot of free time for extranet research when I was in that cell."

He gave her a knowing look. "Specifically _khavr_ roast and _lrothin_ fruit?"

She smirked at him briefly before turning her attention back to her painting. "I know what you like."

He smirked back as he came back towards her. "Well, then why don't I just make you some of your dad's old recipes?"

"Because, much like me dancing, you can't cook to save your life." She accented that "scathing" comment by leaning over to kiss his scars affectionately. "But it's the thought that counts."

He shook his head. "Fair enough. But why fully stock up when we're only going to be here a few days?"

"Contingency for that party Joker recommended."

"Ah. In that case, you probably didn't get enough for _Grunt_, let alone _everyone_."

She laughed. "You've got a point, but trust me, there's not enough food on the Citadel."

He smiled as he drew closer, wrapping his arms around her.

She leaned into him, pausing momentarily from her work. "I hope you know how much you mean to me."

He nuzzled softly against her. "Same here."

She smiled contentedly, taking a moment to again silently appreciate their embrace.

"Am I distracting you?"

She turned to give him a sly look and snarky comment only to be cut off by the sound of her terminal beeping in the other room, announcing incoming messages. She sighed. "No, but _that_ is." She finally set down her paints and turned to check it.

"If it's from Joker, don't answer it!" he called after her.

She smirked over her shoulder at him before going off to see for herself. She wasn't even surprised to see that basically all of her squad-mates were behind the sudden influx of messages, all of them asking to spend some time with her while they could. She was a bit surprised none of the requests had come in yesterday, but they all presumably either decided to let her rest and recuperate from the mission or caught on to the fact that Garrus was with her. Beaming at the prospect of just hanging out with her friends without shooting anything, she went back over to tell Garrus that their friends were asking after her.

Garrus sighed. "Right. Guess I don't have you all to myself quite yet."

She smiled conspiratorially. "You can still stay here with me every night. No sense changing our sleeping arrangements."

He smiled back. "Fair enough." He took her hand for a moment. "Go ahead, have some fun with the others. I have a few things of my own to do."

She gave him a curious look before agreeing, kissing him one last time, and then going back to quickly finish what she could with her paintings while he finished eating and left the apartment. After she was satisfied with her progress, she headed off to start meeting the others.

Terra had known her friends were amazing, of course, but she hadn't had the chance to really just have fun with them before. Even better, _all _of her squad-mates, present and former, were on leave to do so. Within an hour, she'd helped Traynor win a Kepesh-Yakshi tournament, beaten Jacob at three different arcade games (and definitely not gloated about it, promise), and decimated a round of holograms in the combat simulator with Jack. She even had a few laughs meeting Zaeed at a claw machine and finding Javik had been roped into acting in a Blasto vid (after the fact, at least, since she was pretty annoyed at the time). And that was before a C-Sec officer called her on Grunt's behalf.

"What happened?" Terra sighed as she checked on him.

Grunt shrugged. "A couple squad-mates broke me out of the hospital for my birthday. Tried to lower me out of the side of the building on a rope. …it didn't work out."

Terra struggled not to laugh at the mental image that struck her of Grunt falling out a window and no one inside noticing the screaming krogan in the process. Though something else he said struck her. "It's your birthday?"

"No! I'm tank-bred, remember?"

Terra didn't contemplate the conflicting information. She just contemplate making the day she opened that tank his birthday and marking it somehow. It wasn't far off, the war was almost over, and he deserved that much. "Right. And what happened next?"

"We took a few pictures on the krogan memorial. When C-Sec got there, they were mad. …or maybe they were mad about their car being on fire. Can't remember."

Terra blinked at him. "Why was it on fire?"

"I threw my bottle of ryncol at it. Went up like a bonfire. The C-Sec guys jumped out. Then I figured they didn't want it, so I took it. They sprayed us down with riot foam. Didn't work so well on me."

Terra sighed. "And why is that?"

"'Cause I was on fire. From the car. Come on, Shepard, keep up."

"Right. Sorry. So how did they catch you?"

"Got hungry. Bought some noodles."

She also struggled not to start laughing at that. Instead, she stood firm and gave him a sharp look. "Grunt, you apologize to the nice man for setting his car on fire."

He sighed. "Fine. I'm sorry."

She kept looking at him.

"…and I won't do it again."

"Good." She then turned to finish with the officer in question. When he was gone, she turned to smile at her krogan friend. "So. How were those noodles?"

He shrugged again. "A little spicy."

She laughed now. "I love you, Grunt."

He laughed with her.

She took a few moments to spend some time with him before heading off to meet some of the others. She was on the way to meet Ashley in the casino when she was halted in her tracks by a strange noise. No one else nearby seemed to notice it, so it was likely her cybernetics catching it, but she was certain she could hear a buzzing coming from beneath one of the quasar machines. Confused, she leaned over and found a device tucked underneath it. She removed the device and held it up to her ear. She wasn't sure what it was supposed to be doing, but she could hear it was faintly connected to a COMM frequency.

_"…Sennek, hit the COMMs…Tianna, distract the bouncer…"_

Wait. Terra knew that voice. What's more, she was hearing it more clearly now, as if it was getting closer. She finally lowered the device from her ear and glanced over her shoulder at the entrance.

A certain Japanese rogue was standing there, halting in her tracks and her scheming alike when she realized she was spotted. "Oops! I seem to have the wrong casino!" She quickly whirled around to jog out of the building.

Too late. Terra jumped to catch her. "Kasumi?"

Kasumi stopped trying to leave and sighed. "Take a walk, guys." Once her companions had left them alone, she turned to give Terra a sheepish look. "I can explain?"

Terra shook her head. "Don't tell me you think I'm gonna report you. We're friends, remember?"

Kasumi smirked. "Can't be sure with you. Always such a goody two-shoes."

"Have a little faith, my kleptomaniac cohort."

Kasumi laughed as she started following her around the floor. "I am doing this for a reason, you know. There are people who can't make it to the Citadel who are having a hard time out there. This place has more money than it knows what to do with, money that could help those refugees survive." It went unnoticed by everyone but Terra that she was passively hacking every machine they walked by without even looking. "And it's not like the owner can spend it if the Reapers win."

Terra scoffed. "Especially not now he's dead."

"What?"

"Nothing. Just good to see you playing Robin Hood for once. It kind of suits you."

Kasumi smiled. "Does that mean you trust me enough to show me that fancy new ring?"

Terra nodded, holding up her hand to show off the ring in question.

"Wow. Garrus doesn't give you second-best."

"Never. Only one of a kind."

"Makes it even more valuable."

"_Kasumi_…"

"I meant that in more ways than one, Shep."

Terra smiled. "I'm glad I caught you, Kasumi. Now go have fun before the guards catch you, too."

"Hey. I never get caught." With that, Kasumi gave one last friendly salute before cloaking away.

Terra walked away before anyone could notice, heading up to the bar area to wait for Ashley. She found Joker there when she arrived, trying to talk his way out of a tab with a story about how he was the real hero of the Citadel, which Terra definitely didn't start snickering at behind his back, promise. When he got to the end and made a point of saying what Shepard would say if she were here right before noticing that she was, in fact, there, she decided to step up and, withholding her previous laughter, back Joker up. It wasn't unfair to say he was a hero, seeing as how she couldn't have done half of what she had with anyone else flying her ship, so she didn't mind.

"Wow," Joker commented when the bartender had walked off to pay for his drinks, "Thanks, commander."

She smirked. "Consider it repaying you for the 'bait' thing."

He laughed. "Alright, fair enough."

She spent a few minutes with Joker before Ashley caught up with her. Though her time with Ashley inevitably ended in a brawl that all too quickly concluded in their favor, Terra definitely appreciated the chance to hang out with her fellow Spectre and have a few friendly challenges without the need for their rifles. And it was certainly a pleasant surprise when Wrex came up after Ashley had left so he could slump against the bar (though the krogan equivalent of slumping involved plopping his head on the counter so heavily that the glasses on the other side of the room rattled) and complain about the…_pressures_ being heaped upon him since he took the lead for his entire people in the aftermath of the genophage cure. Terra gave him a few reassuring pats on his hump before simply having a few drinks with him.

"_Korbal_!" he cried after they did. He quickly noticed Terra's curious glance. "It means 'victory or death,' roughly."

"Ah," she smirked, "but you can't die, Wrex. You've got a family now. …a _really big_ family."

He groaned, pounding his head on the counter again. "MORE ICE!"

Terra was halfway through ushering him out of bar and struggling not to laugh at his "misfortune" when she got a message from Garrus asking to meet her there ("Hopefully no dead arms dealers this time."). She messaged back that he was in luck and she was already there, taking a seat nearby and waiting for him. She smiled when she finally saw him coming up, back in the civvies she literally never saw him in. "Hey, there, handsome. Have we met?"

He smirked at her. "Funny." He sat down beside her, his talons habitually coming to rest on the hand carrying her ring. "I figured we deserved a night out."

She smiled. "That we do." She was content to simply sit here with him for a few moments before doing anything special. She could feel her instincts going off, though, saying someone was watching them. She glanced curiously that direction, the female turian responsible taking one look at their conjoined hands and turning aside. Terra smirked. "Was that girl just checking you out?"

Garrus turned to give a confused look in that general direction. "What?"

"It's the scars, right? You're telling me you didn't even notice? You really are clueless."

He shook his head, turning back to her. "I thought we established I only have eyes for you." He accented the statement with a smile, his talon reaching up to stroke the hair draped over her right eye.

She smirked as her hair drifted back into place. "That supposed to melt a girl's heart?"

"I thought you said I already stole it."

"You're still gonna have to do better than that, Vakarian."

Even he felt the mischievous gleam in his eyes when she said that. "Challenge accepted." That was when Garrus grabbed her by the wrist and stood up.

She immediately tensed up. "What…what are you doing?"

"It'll be fun!" he assured her as he pulled her to her feet. And then towards the dance floor.

She started panicking when she realized what he was up to. "Oh no! No, no, no, no, no! _No_!"

Not one to be deterred, he ignored her protests and drew her into position, wrapping his arm around her waist. "Did I mention Violet and I traded like I did with you?"

It took her a few seconds to catch his meaning. He was admitting to showing Violet the self-defense maneuvers that had saved her in the shuttle bay…and in return, she'd shown him how to dance with a human partner. Presumably with this specific outcome in mind. "Oh, you're both gonna pay for this later."

He smirked. "Promises, promises."

Terra answered that by purposely blocking his next step with her foot. It still didn't dissuade him, but at least she'd made her point.

As she had made a point of earlier that day, Terra would be the first to admit she was a terrible dancer. She always had been. Her own family had made fun of her for it, albeit in a family-typical teasing way. To be fair, most of the Shepard clan wasn't exactly better, her father being just as bad as she was and her brother not bothering to try very often. Like with most things, though, Violet stood out. She was by no means quite so much a prodigy at dancing as she was at math and music, but she could've excelled at simple routines even as grand as ballet had she tried. So Terra didn't doubt that her efforts to teach Garrus a ballroom dance were well-meant and possibly even successful. It was the fact that her sister expected a turian to tango and Terra to follow in any capacity that made her think this was going to end in tears for all involved.

Surprisingly, though, Garrus was proving her wrong. Despite their differences, he was leading perfectly, every move practically synchronized with the song that she was definitely going to be adding to her personal collection later. Terra finally gave in and decided to put his newfound skills to the test, raising her leg up to his hip. He answered by smiling at her and taking a step back so they were locked together. Suddenly, she wasn't so opposed to this.

She smiled as they continued, feeling as if they were the only ones there and the song was playing just for them. It was only when they slowed down to add a few steps that she noticed they actually were the only ones there as the rest of the dance floor had been cleared to make way for them and everyone previously on it was now watching them in astonishment. She couldn't help but take no small amount of satisfaction from that, giggling and swinging her leg with the rhythm.

Garrus smiled back when he noticed. "Now you're getting it."

She followed him for a few more moments, slowly losing track of her own movements. When he used a turn to release her from his arms in a spin, she came to a halt more gracefully than she could've anticipated and curled her fingers to call him back over. The look of enticement he gave in response didn't escape her notice, her own eyes reflecting it as they, in one fluid turn, slid back into each other's arms. As the song finally came to an end, he finished with a flourish, drawing her to lean back in his grasp as their makeshift audience cheered.

"So," he smirked, "tell me…think a girl would fall for that?"

She beamed back as she drew herself upright enough to meet his eyes. "In a heartbeat…if she hadn't already fallen for so much else…so long ago."

He simply held onto her, letting this moment last. "Either way, it was worth it for this."

"Remind me to thank Violet."

"Before or after we try it in bed?"

She smirked. "Both." Then she, without breaking their stance, leaned up to kiss him as the scene around them faded back to normal.

When Terra got back to her apartment, an hour later, she was still humming the song they'd danced to, her steps light and giddy and interspersed with spins. This was a special kind of feeling that she had never had in her life before, the kind of happiness that can only be achieved by being in love and not having a care in the world. She went back to her painting teeming with joy and inspiration. Just as she was convinced she was finished with the landscape that now rested proudly on the wall behind the holo-table, her terminal let her know that another influx of messages had come through. Surprise, surprise, everyone she hadn't met out on the strip was asking to come visit the apartment. How could she turn them down?

James came by first. He was quick to compliment the view from the balcony, but it was hard to miss the hollowness of his words and the homesick longing in his eyes.

"You miss Earth?" Terra surmised.

"Yeah," he nodded, "And the people."

She smirked. "So what's her name?"

That got him to laugh. "No! No, I stopped…_fraternizing_ when I joined the military."

"And yet you're still a shameless flirt."

He shrugged. "Yeah, well, that's just my way. I don't mean anything by it, Lola."

She folded her arms at him. "Uh-huh."

"What? Don't tell me I'm making this hard on you and Garrus."

She scoffed, shaking her head. "Not even remotely."

"Hard to imagine anything like what you two have. A lot of history there."

"To say the least."

"…hey…if you don't mind my asking…how do you two…? I mean, is he…you know…do turians have all the same…?"

She gave him a look almost of warning. "Same…?"

He finally withdrew. "Never mind. I don't wanna know."

After wishing him well as a newly-inducted N7 and seeing him off, Terra messaged EDI to let her know she could come by next. EDI arrived in two minutes as if she had been waiting outside the building and, without a hint of preamble, told Terra she wanted to buy gifts for their crewmates and that Joker had even leant her his credit chit for an extranet shopping spree. Terra couldn't help but question how much money Joker actually had to spare on there (especially considering his earlier bluff with the bartender) and how much he must love EDI to trust her with it. She figured it was the least they could do to give him something in return, so she gently prodded EDI to get something for them to do together…and keep it small, just in case.

"Who's next?" Terra asked.

"You are," EDI answered, "Close your eyes."

Terra reluctantly complied, closing her eyes for a moment and opening them to find EDI was holding out…a ring? "…uh, EDI…we're both taken, remember?"

"This is not a symbol of romantic attachment. It is a symbol of perseverance. These rings are made with metals from each Council home-world, each compounding with the last to make the whole stronger. The maker calls them 'victory rings.' Due to material shortages, only a few exist."

Terra got the message. Something to remind her they could all survive this as long as they worked together. "EDI, that's…wonderful of you." She took the ring carefully. "You sure it will go my set?" She fingered her necklace with the hand carrying her engagement ring.

"You do not have to wear it. You can keep it in your pencil case. Based on my observations, I believe you will see it just as often there."

"Ah. You've really thought this through. Who's next now?"

"I was thinking of something for Liara…"

Twenty minutes later, they'd gotten special surprises for all of their crewmates, including a chess set for Traynor, a collection of poetry books for Ashley, and a programmable music box for Violet.

"I see," EDI remarked when Terra made this suggestion, "A counterpart to your pencil case."

"She made it for me," Terra shrugged, "Figure I can pay her back and she can keep her sheet music in it. In fact, if you send it to me, I can decorate it for her, too."

"Noted."

"Who does that leave?"

"Just Solana and Garrus."

Terra smirked. "I've got something in mind…"

Five minutes later, EDI left, appearing as much as an AI could to be satisfied with their work. Terra spent the next couple hours inviting over Samara, Miranda, and Jack (and, by extension, Jack's new pet varren, which Terra was actually really excited to see). In between each visit, Terra continued working on the paintings. She had just about finished the second and prepared to do detail work on the third and final when she heard the piano playing. She assumed Violet had stopped by early, so she was surprised to see Liara there.

"I didn't know you could play," Terra said as she came over.

"Actually," Liara corrected, "this is the only song I know."

"It's beautiful."

"…thank you."

Liara tried to give some offhand comment about having work to do, but Terra talked her into sticking around for a moment longer and called Violet over. The former prodigy had been in the apartment for all of ten seconds before she was having Liara teach her the song so she could teach Liara a few of her own. Terra smiled at the scene before letting it be the soundtrack to the last of her artwork.

Tali was the last one over. She gave the new decorations a few appreciative glances before coming to see Terra.

Seeing as how they meeting as friends rather than commander and engineer, Terra couldn't resist hugging her. "We finally get a girl's night. Got anything in mind?"

"Not really," Tali shrugged, "I'm as free as the dust in the solar wind. You remember that line. From _Fleet and Flotilla_."

Terra blinked. "Uh…it's been a few years since I saw it, actually."

Tali smirked behind her helmet. "Well, then I know what we're doing tonight."

The irony was that the vid was technically a romance about a turian and a quarian, one that Terra had seen for the first time with Garrus several years ago when she was visiting him on the Citadel. She watched it with Tali now as a "chick flick" of sorts, trading stories about how Tali used to activate a sing-along mode when she was watching this with her friends during sleepovers and how Terra was pretty sure Garrus had put the score from one of the ending scenes in his combat playlist, but she also noticed (even before Tali outright commented with a wink "Who doesn't love a good cross-species romance?") the parallels she had missed the first time. Mostly, though, she just enjoyed spending some time with her best friend just being friends without a thought towards war. She was going to have to make sure they got more time like this when everything was over.

Right as Tali left and it occurred to Terra that it was getting late, two last messages came to the terminal, one from Miranda and one from Solana, both asking for her to meet them. Mostly since she didn't know when they'd get another chance to do this, she figured "Why not?" and headed out. Miranda just wanted to have some fun and pretend to be normal, which Terra could definitely get behind.

Solana, however, was looking for just the opposite. "She strikes again. I found us another secret hideaway."

"I'm pretty sure the Citadel doesn't have waterfalls, Sol," Terra said.

Solana smirked. "Next best thing. Come on." Carefully avoiding any wandering eyes, she led Terra in a twisting journey around the strip all the way to the roof of a market tower.

One that overlooked the entire neon-lit strip and was high enough to view the rest of the Ward shadowed by Widow's light.

Terra was getting more and more convinced that the best views on the station were restricted to keeper and maintenance walkways. "Good to see your skills are still intact."

Solana smirked. "Maybe I should stick at your navigation station for a while. I could at least find you a few good views." After taking a moment to laugh with her adopted sister, she reached into her pocket. "Speaking of which, EDI caught me earlier and gave me this. I don't suppose you have anything to do with it?" She held up a charm in the shape of a jura flower.

Terra shrugged. "Why would you think that?"

Solana gave her a sharp look.

Terra rolled her eyes. "She wanted to get you something. I figured you could keep it at your station."

"Ah. Reminder of what exactly I'm capable of?"

"Or at least of a good memory to hold onto in all this insanity."

Solana nodded as she tucked the charm back in her pocket. "Fair enough." She turned to lean against the ledge, Terra copying her, to take in the view. "Sure is busy down there."

"People need an escape at times like this."

"War heroes included, I see."

"Yeah, well, even I can't carry everything. At least not on my own."

"Then it's a good thing you never are on your own."

Terra smiled. "I've gotten lucky. Had a couple stand-in families I knew I could lean on."

"Actually, I was talking about the fact Garrus is never more than 20 feet away from you, but that, too."

Terra scoffed, giving her adopted sister a playful shove.

Solana laughed again. "Hey, he likes you. And I'm kind of attached to you myself."

"Well, I'd hope so. After a certain wedding, you'll be stuck with me."

Solana sighed. "Guess I will. …it's been nice having a sister."

Terra sighed with her. "It has."

After Terra's outing with Solana was over, the time started catching up with her. Since, by her count, she'd already met up with everyone now, she figured it was time to call it a night.

Naturally, Garrus was already there when she reached the apartment, smiling at the sight of her. "Enjoying your time off?"

She smiled as she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. "As much as I can. I see you added yourself to the security."

"Well, you said you didn't want to sleep without me, so I figured I was just saving time."

"So you were. Like the new decorations?"

He smirked, glancing at the paintings. He'd already made it clear how he admired the landscape now hanging behind the holo-table, but he couldn't help but smile at the two works arranged on the balcony—a more abstract image reflecting the neon atmosphere of both the strip and the Citadel in general and a perfect capture of the galaxy map that portrayed the stars of the home-worlds as golden sparks in a silver-white spiral. "You always know how to make every place you set foot in better for having known you."

She beamed as she leaned into him. "You're giving me a run for my money with the poetic compliments."

"Maybe a change of pace is in order," he remarked as he kissed her.

When they separated, she took his hand with a smirk. "We do still have to test out your new moves."

"You don't have anywhere to run off to?"

"I'm flexible."

He eyed her longingly. "That you are."

She gave him a look before leading him into her room. When she fell asleep in his arms, a half hour later, she felt like all was right with the world. Though she couldn't escape that nagging feeling rooted deep inside her that the Reapers were still out there, that Cerberus was still active. All the more reason to take them down. She wanted this to be real, to be permanent. One day, when she and Garrus had made good on their engagement, it would be.

For now, she let this moment last while it could, finding the peaceful rest she had so long needed here in the arms of her mate.


	81. A Premature Celebration

OK, so this one also took a long time, but in my defense, I've got a lot going on right now and I had no idea this one would be SO LONG. Like I said, though, things are winding down, so expect the updates to speed back up again before long. Enjoy.

Chapter 81: A Premature Celebration

The greatest enemy one can face is time  
The only way to defeat it  
Is not to fight it

Garrus couldn't fault Terra for deciding to make the party the entirety of their last day of shore leave so they could "go out with a bang." He couldn't fault her either for inviting literally every one of their surviving squad-mates—current and former—because she wanted "the whole family together" for what they were hoping would be the last time before the wedding and not _the last time_. He especially couldn't fault her for choosing to attend this party in the same outfit she'd worn to the sushi place, which she claimed was a matter of convenience and not because she saw it drew his love-struck eyes. What he _could_ fault her for was what EDI gave him when she arrived.

"I take it you put her up to this?" Garrus asked her.

Terra gave him a sideways glance. "What ever could you mean?"

He held out a holo that, upon activation, cycled through a series of images that were clearly of Terra's creation…as well as the two of his and several general images of Palaven, all with the option to set the turian imperial anthem playing.

She smirked. "Oh, is that what she thought I meant by 'something to keep home close'?"

He smirked back at her. "You know I already have a few of these."

"Well, if they get lost or stop working, you have a backup that has all of them and more already. You're welcome."

He shook his head as he placed the device back in his pocket. "Don't you have a party to be setting up?"

Terra, with a brief but sly glance his direction, stepped past him to do so. EDI and Glyph actually finished most of the setup for her (Glyph mostly working on the music side, having no physical dexterity to speak of). The others were clearly quite excited for the get-together considering how quickly they all arrived. Terra definitely had never felt so at home than she did when nearly everyone she cared about in the same room. The only way it could be better would be if they were on the _Normandy_ to do so.

"It's a really nice place you got here, Shep," Kasumi smirked.

"_Kasumi_…" Terra gave her a warning glare.

Kasumi held out her hands. "Promise I won't nick anything. …though I do make my own fun." Rather than clarifying her meaning, she cloaked herself and disappeared.

"…why do I not feel better?"

"Don't worry," Jack shook her head, "Everyone's here to watch out for her."

"She's right, though," Solana commented, "It is a nice place." She cast an impressed glance towards the new artwork. "Especially since you redecorated."

Garrus smirked. "Yeah. Kind of place Archangel could retire in."

"Also known as the Shepard-Vakarian love nest," Liara smirked to herself.

"I would have doubted you would ever retire, Garrus," Samara said, "since there are always criminals who deserve justice for their actions." She smiled towards Terra. "But that was before I heard you already made arrangements."

Garrus smiled as Terra took his side. "Yeah, we did."

"I wish you well."

"You don't have to," Violet called, "There's never been two people more perfect for each other." She smiled at the sight of how Garrus and Terra clung to each other and proved her words. _We should all be so lucky as to find someone who looks at us the way they look at each other._

Terra watched her friends spread out to talk. Violet surprised her by striking up friendly conversation with virtually everyone. Even before the raid, the term "social butterfly" hadn't been one that really applied to Violet, but now she was interacting with the _Normandy_ crew as if she had always been one of them. It felt right.

Traynor disagreed, seeming jealous of Violet's ease. "I've been on the ship longer than she has and I still feel out of place."

"Don't be ridiculous, Traynor," Terra prodded her, "You've been indispensible."

"Well, I appreciate that, but some of your friends are legends. I can't just ask if they've tried the hummus." Before Terra could keep pushing her, she changed the subject. "Also, Dr. Chakwas apologized for not coming. Some emergency medical consult."

"Oh," Solana spoke up, "and Dad said something about having tactical data to go over and that we should have fun without him. Though I question why you bothered to invite him in the first place since he's not exactly a party guy."

"Honestly?" Terra asked, "Because I knew he'd say 'no' but I thought it'd be rude not to."

"…fair enough. You can always have some of your 'heart-to-heart' chats in the war room next time we're en route."

"Are we sure the _Normandy_ is still there?" Traynor scoffed, "Has anyone else tried to steal it?"

Kasumi, naturally, picked that moment to pop up behind her. "Stealing the _Normandy_! Now there's an idea!" Also naturally, she immediately disappeared again.

Much to Traynor's startled and slightly flustered confusion. "Wait, what? Who…?"

Terra winced. "Uh, Traynor? Did I reimburse you for your toothbrush yet?"

"Ah, we can always get another _Normandy_," Tali waved off the comment, clearly a superficial joke about how Kasumi knew her boundaries, "Just call up Cerberus and ask them to _please_ build us an SR-3. Or maybe they even have one already and we can steal it when we destroy their base."

"But wouldn't you be required to change your name?" Samara questioned, "Tali'Zorah von Normandy SR-3?"

"No, and it's _vas_ Normandy. _Von_ means 'one who has a weak bladder.' Don't feel bad, even _I_ get confused by quarian names sometimes."

Violet smirked, leaning over the kitchen counter to hear the conversation. "I always wondered, Tali. What were you thinking when you met Terra?"

"Honestly? 'I hope she took a shower, because my filter needs replacing and humans carry a lot of germs.'"

"Ah. Well, I can see things have changed."

"If you're looking for dramatic, romantic, star-crossed first thoughts about your sister, Garrus is definitely the one you should be asking."

Garrus shrugged. "Not exactly. It was more sympathy than admiration at the time. I had to get to know her first."

"Oh?" Liara smirked, "Guess you've achieved that."

Violet gave the asari a sideways look, catching the double meaning. "I'm going to pretend you didn't just say that."

Terra didn't neglect anyone as she went around the party, talking to every one of her 20 guests (well, 19, since Garrus technically belonged there with her anyway) in turn. It was pretty clear this was what they'd all needed, a chance to unwind and just be friends rather than squad-mates.

Though Grunt and Wrex still managed to cause some trouble. Krogan will be krogan.

"What am I missing?" Terra asked when she caught the two sneering at each other.

"The Prothean wants to know who's stronger between me and Wrex," Grunt answered.

"You gotta admit, Shepard," Zaeed shrugged, "It's a good question."

"No, it's not!" Wrex scoffed, "Baby pyjak here wouldn't stand a chance."

"Don't listen to this fossil," Grunt waved him off, "The only thing he could defeat is a glass of warm milk."

Wrex started laughing. "I've got head lice bigger than you, junior!"

"Are you boys done talking?" Zaeed quickly prodded.

"Yeah," Grunt growled, "Only one way to settle this!" He then proceeded to head-butt Wrex.

Wrex recoiled briefly before laughing again. "Now the party's starting!" And hitting back.

Before Grunt could pull back and try to tackle Wrex, Terra got between the two. "Another time, boys! We're here to have fun, not trash my new apartment."

"Commander," Javik scoffed, "in a few centuries, no one will even remember this party. What is the point?"

"The point is that _we'll_ remember it. And we'll have all the more reason to fight for each other. I'd like to see the Reapers stand up to that."

"Ah. You believe morale wins wars."

"Provably so. Turians and humans agree. We lose hope, we lose strength. We need purpose. We need support. …we need family."

For once, Javik's decision not to continue the conversation seemed less about not seeing the point in arguing and more about considering the veracity behind her words. Maybe she was finally getting through to him.

Figures it would be steering the discussion towards how it hastened the Reapers' defeat that finally won her one of these debates.

"You know," Joker was saying when she came around to sitting next to EDI, "I miss the days when Cerberus was just hilariously incompetent." He gestured to Jacob and Miranda. "You know, when you two ran things."

"Excuse me?!" Jacob immediately demanded.

Miranda scoffed. "The only thing I was in charge of was the Lazarus Project." She nodded pointedly towards Terra. "Which, you will note, was very successful."

"Uh-huh, right," Joker nodded dismissively before pretending to take a COMM call, "'Hey, commander? This is Cerberus. We were running some tests on some rachni and they got loose and killed all our guys. Could you go take care of that? It's one system over from where we hooked some guy up to the geth…which also got loose and killed all our guys.'"

Terra struggled not to burst out laughing. "I mean, they did rack up quite the body count. At least, back then, it was usually their own bodies."

Since Jacob knew better than to argue this particular issue, Miranda answered, shaking her head. "Well, they also did _one_ thing right: we brought back Commander Shepard."

Terra smiled. "And the _Normandy_. And then we destroyed the Collectors together…and then I got loose and started killing all their guys!"

Joker smirked. "For which we thank you."

"Jeff?" EDI spoke up, "Do you remember that _I_ am also a Cerberus project?"

"…aw, crap."

Terra could always count on Joker and EDI to amuse her. Not least because they were clearly made for each other. Proof that their AI was more than she was programmed to be.

Since they had set aside the entire day for the party, Terra had, for lack of a better word, scheduled the arrangements with Glyph to have a few hours of peace and conversation before everything inevitably turned chaotic. Naturally, Violet responded by spending the first 20 minutes or so continuing to socialize before situating herself at the piano and supplanting Glyph's music arrangements. Terra couldn't help but smile at this even as she continued to go around and give everyone as much time as she could.

She was a bit surprised to find Garrus and Zaeed conversing on the balcony. "What are you boys up to over here?"

"Looking at this poor excuse of an apartment, that's what," Zaeed shook his head.

"What's wrong with it?"

Garrus, who she had fully expected to argue against this, suddenly seemed antsy and answered before Zaeed could. "There are too many windows. And they're too big. Makes it easy for people to track your movement. …though I guess it'd be easy to set up a defensible position in that office room…"

"I'd extend the wall out first," Zaeed pointed out, "Prevent someone sticking you in the back."

"Oh, that's a good idea! Wish I could've done that back in the day on Omega!"

Terra shook her head. "Do I need to separate you two? We're here to relax then have some fun, not scrutinize security arrangements on an apartment that I assure you both is perfectly fine."

"Fine is good for most people," Garrus instantly snapped back, "not the love of my life. I need to know you're safe even when I'm not here."

Ah. Seeing where he was coming from, she smiled. "I appreciate the thought, love, but you of all people know I can look out for myself. I'm even keeping my weapons close by."

"That doesn't mean people can't still sneak up on you. You want the sushi place to happen again?" Before she could debate the matter further, he turned back to Zaeed. "Maybe we should start upping the security at all the points of entry."

"Even the windows and vents?" Zaeed questioned.

"That's what tripwires are for."

Zaeed smirked. "You're a genius, Vakarian, I swear it."

Terra rolled her eyes when she realized they were past the point where she could get through to them. "Right. You two just…good luck with that." So she stepped back while they were distracted with their scheming and went to talk to the others.

Though, if she was being honest, she had to admit she got more enjoyment out of listening in on the conversations than she did out of participating. Particularly out of overhearing Wrex and Grunt's continued challenges to each other and Tali's attempts to "act out" the differences between the first and second _Normandy_. Then again, she also appreciated getting to sit in on that particular conversation and wholeheartedly agree with Tali and Liara that the first _Normandy_ was the best, if only because the SR-2 wouldn't exist without it anyway, leading Miranda, Jacob, and James to ask about what it had been like and start a string of reminiscences. It was hard to imagine that it was only three years ago now that all this started, that things had seemed so simple back then but had led them all here together… Terra smiled as they looked back. She missed those days sometimes. Sure, the crisis that had brought them together had now led to a galaxy-wide war for existence, but considering all she had gained from the struggle…much like the raid, she wouldn't change it if she could.

Besides, she had more faith than ever now that they were going to win this.

When she eventually got up to talk to some of the others, she found Solana waiting in the hall. "Good to see you having fun for once."

Terra gave her a look. "You have seen me having fun before."

"Have I? This is different."

Terra shrugged. "Yeah, there's something about just spending time with the people you care about without having to think about how you might not get the chance next week… We should do this more often after the war's over."

Solana smile and nodded. "Yeah. Maybe I should stay on the ship for that."

"…really? You don't think you and your dad will be going back to Palaven?"

"Oh, no, Dad definitely will. And if not for your little engagement, Garrus might've _had_ to. But me? I'm not exactly crucial to any forthcoming reconstruction. And I haven't exactly had long enough at the nav station to show what I can really do. So if nobody minds me sticking around, maybe I'll lend a hand a little longer." She smirked. "I wouldn't mind being the first to get to call you 'Commander Vakarian.'"

Terra laughed with her as they turned to come out of the hall. "I wouldn't mind either. And since it's my ship and I'm both a Spectre and the three-times-running savior of the galaxy, no one can tell me otherwise. You're in. When all this over, we'll even do something special to officially welcome you aboard."

"Me _and_ Violet, I assume?" Solana commented, "Not like she's going anywhere either…" She then looked towards the door. "Uh, what's Garrus doing?"

Terra looked over to see Garrus fiddling with the glass on the planter by the door. "Not a clue. Why don't I go over and ask?" So she snuck up behind him.

_"Yeah," she could hear Zaeed through Garrus' COMM, "Five by five grid across the glass should do it."_

"I was thinking 12 by 12," Garrus countered, "Tighter clusters, maximum impact."

"What are you talking about?"

She hadn't successfully managed to sneak up on Garrus in years. Doing so now while he was focused on whatever he was doing made him jump so suddenly and so comically that she almost did the same right back at him. "Terra! Uh, nothing! Nothing at all. Just…admiring the polish on this glass."

_"Good," Zaeed said, "Don't tell her. She won't understand."_

Terra answered with a sharp look, folding her arms as Garrus winced at how Zaeed clearly hadn't expected she could hear him. "Try me."

Garrus sighed. "It's just, well…one man's decorative glass wall fixture is another man's…_explosive_ glass wall fixture."

_"Oh, now you've done it," Zaeed sneered, "I can already hear your soon-to-be-ball-and-chain frowning!"_

"_Explosive_?!" Terra demanded.

"Micro-filaments, Terra!" Garrus started enthusiastically explaining, "Tiny strips of explosives laid across the glass in a grid. When an intruder enters, you flip the switch and _boom_! They're shredded to pieces."

_"Weaponized wall fixtures, Shepard," Zaeed concurred, "Wave of the future in home defense."_

Terra just glared at them both (mainly Garrus since Zaeed was upstairs and all). "Uh-huh."

Garrus shook his head, reaching out to take her hands. "Terra, sweetie, love of my life, indulge your crazy, paranoid fiancé? I need to know you're safe."

She rolled her eyes to make it clear he hadn't heard the last of this but sighed to signal she was also relenting. "If it'll make you feel better, honey."

_"Oh, go get a room!" Zaeed cut back in._

Terra finally cut into the line with her own COMM to retort back properly. "That comes later and is none of your business. _Hang up_!" When the line fell silent for a moment, she figured he'd taken the hint and followed suit, turning her attention to Garrus. "Listen," she told him plainly as she wrapped her arms around him, "I understand how you feel. But you can't let it get to you. We're almost through this."

He nodded as he laid his head on hers. "I know. I just…I already lived two years without you. I don't ever wanna do that again."

She answered by leaning over to kiss his scars. "You won't. I made a promise." She stepped back with a supportive smile. "Now finish what you were doing so we can actually enjoy the party while we can…and don't break anything while you're at it."

"Right. I'll, uh…try not to kill the plants."

She shook her head as she walked away and went back to checking on the others. Violet was still going through her entire repertoire on the piano (no sheet music required, even after all these years) while everyone else was moving around to explore the apartment and socialize. …well, in Kasumi's case, it was mostly the first one, since Terra caught her popping out of her cloak in several different rooms to make sarcastic comments and not actually interact with anyone. Knowing the thief well enough to know that this was best left alone, Terra focused on checking in on everyone else, specifically the half of the party that had gathered upstairs to continue reminiscing and chatting like the family they were.

After spending some time with this collective, Terra took a second to head into her bedroom and— "Zaeed! What are you doing?!"

Zaeed was fiddling the wires on the hot tub in her bathroom. "Next time another one of your clones tries stealing your life, we'll have a little surprise hooked up for them. Isn't that right, Garrus?"

_"Spared no expense for my honey," Garrus smirked down the line._

"Say your clone drops by and fancies a dip in this hot tub. Big mistake! Soon as they stick so much as a toe in the water, a timer starts counting down."

"To what?" Terra asked hesitantly.

"Ever swim a few laps on the surface of the sun? No? Well, your clone will."

As he laughed to himself at the prospect, she gave him an alarmed look. "But what if one of us wants to use the hot tub?"

"Covered that," he waved her off, "It's keyed to the DNA of everyone friendly."

Her alarmed look turned to a glare. "But a clone would have the same DNA as me."

Zaeed blinked, letting the information sink in. "…crap." Groaning to himself, he turned back to reset the wiring. "Garrus, scratch the hot tub. I got a few plans for that kitchen, though."

Terra threw her hands out as she saw there was no getting through to them.

"See, the way I see it, a coffee machine is just a miniature bomb. We cross a couple wires and any clone looking for a pick-me-up will be picking pieces of themselves up off the floor!"

_"Caffeine rush," Garrus agreed, "I like it!"_

Terra shook her head and left the room. "I'm not gonna be able to touch anything in this place tomorrow morning…"

Zaeed simply kept putting the wires back where they'd been when he came in the room. "…so…do you think a clone's DNA would be _exactly_ identical or just _mostly_ identical."

_Garrus groaned. "Just let it go, Zaeed."_

Terra retreated into the kitchen. She wasn't sure whether to be alarmed or amused that EDI was in there with Traynor and Grunt making snacks.

"EDI, that's a lot of curry," Traynor was noting.

"The recipe calls for it," EDI countered, "I have measured it to the precise milligram."

"I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying _that's a lot of curry_."

"But if we do not follow the recipe, we risk creating something that tastes offensive."

"…also, I'm _allergic_ to curry."

Grunt groaned. "Just get it ready! I'm ready to eat a keeper!"

Terra quickly stepped in. "Here, let me see what's going on."

EDI showed her the recipe. "I am following the instructions as written, Shepard. Your kitchen is fully stocked for it."

"EDI, my dad was a chef, I can confirm that a) experimentation is how you _make_ these recipes and b) they're not always flawless. People share these over the extranet and tweak them to their own personal tastes all the time."

"But if you asked a team member to select the music, and you chose Jeff, the results would be disastrous."

"Which is why no one would ever let Joker near the stereo controls. I'm just saying there's a reason that every different culture has different tastes."

"Yes, it is relative to climate variation—populations with higher native temperatures used spices as preservatives because their food would spoil faster."

"…well, there is that…"

"Just substitute the curry with coriander and cumin," Grunt finally cut in.

Naturally, all three of them turned to look at him in astonishment.

"…what?"

Terra finally handed the recipe back to EDI. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but just do what Grunt said and then keep doing what you were doing. And if it doesn't work out, Vi and I might be able to remember one of Dad's."

Following that, she went to spend the rest of their "quiet time" playing cards with Liara, James, and Kasumi while Glyph dealt and Javik sat there observing, all the while making comments about how games of chance were punishable by death in the Prothean empire. After Kasumi had won two games and Terra had finally beaten her on a third, Glyph informed them that Terra's allotted time for "turning things up" had come up. Terra immediately went to relay to Violet that the tone was changing. The former prodigy genuinely seemed excited and left the piano to join the others again.

Terra got the sense that everyone was waiting desperately for the chance to cut loose, given how quickly things turned chaotic. Casual conversation turned to good-natured teasing and "fighting" in all corners. Ironically, it was Grunt who stepped up to keep things under control, though he admittedly did this in the most Grunt fashion possible by appointing himself the bouncer and turning away the random gate crashers drawn in by the noise. Terra took a few moments to appreciate this particular circumstance before heading off to referee all the friendly disagreements. She kind of regretted interceding on EDI's part in the "civil discussion" the AI was having with Traynor…and Tali, in full agreement, may or may not have poisoned herself with levo cheese trying to change the subject. Miranda and Jack had managed to get themselves alone in a room together without breaking everything in sight, so Terra took the opportunity to finally push them to set their differences aside, at least for the night (which Kasumi may have added some pressure to by getting ready to film their next "catfight" and upload it next to a vid she took earlier of Tali imitating the engines). Zaeed and Samara were off on their own behind the holo-table, Zaeed's misplaced attempts at "flirting" definitely something Terra wished she _hadn't_ overheard before she came to sit on the holo-table and talk to them directly.

"Admiring the décor?" Terra smirked.

"Yes," Samara nodded, "I like the way the colors blend and the depth of the…actually, I have no idea what I'm saying."

"Art does that to people," Zaeed shrugged, "Even the basic ones like this."

Terra attempted not to look offended, finally giving Zaeed a look. "How's your foot taste, Massani?"

"Huh?"

"_I_ made this."

"OH! Oh. Uh…well, basic is good. Not too complicated or in your face or anything…"

"Yeah, keep digging. I'll get you a shovel."

"Be careful of the tripwires on your way out."

"…right."

"You made this, Shepard?" Samara asked, looking more closely at the painting, "It is beautiful."

Terra gave the justicar an appreciative smile. "Thanks."

"Which horizon is this?"

"It's Palaven."

"Ah," Zaeed said as he looked at the image in a new light, "It's been a long time since I went near the birds' planet. I never realized they had such a nice view."

Terra nodded solemnly. "They did."

"And they will again," Samara assured her.

"…yeah."

Leaving Samara and Zaeed to a platonic silence, she went up to the balcony where she'd hung her other two works. Liara, Jacob, James, Ashley, and Violet weren't admiring the art, though, so much as arguing. In fact, this particular disagreement seemed more like a genuine argument than even Miranda and Jack's.

"Don't get me wrong," James was arguing, "I'm not saying biotics aren't impressive."

"You're just saying they're not _that_ impressive," Liara shook her head.

"Wait," Terra quickly stepped in, "he said _what_?"

"Come on, Lola," James turned to her, "You gotta back me up here. Biotics can do some neat stuff, but then there's all that cooling down. It's no substitute for physical prowess."

Terra shook her head. "I know better than to take sides on this one. You're genuinely both right." She then looked between them all and shrugged. "That being said, biotics are literally manipulating dark energy. It's kind of awesome."

James seemed to get her point and backed off. "Alright, fair enough."

"It's true, though!" Violet asserted enthusiastically before turning to Liara and Jacob, "If you don't mind my asking, what was it like when you first found out what you could do?"

"Well, all asari are naturally biotic," Liara answered, "so it wasn't exactly a surprise. However, when they first manifest, it can be quite jarring."

"No kidding," Jacob scoffed, "Stuff goes _flying_."

"Hey, you ever do that for fun?" James asked.

Liara looked at him, startled. "What?"

"You know, throw stuff around. People, cars, that sort of thing."

"I…of course not!"

"Oh, yeah," Jacob countered, "All the time."

"I'm actually kind of jealous," Violet commented, "Being able to just move stuff with my mind would've been a life-saver."

"Yeah, well," James smirked, "you've got some pretty cool talents of your own, Bumblebee."

"'Bumblebee'?"

"What, you don't like it? I know it's not quite like 'Lola,' but—"

"No. It's good."

Terra smirked. "Now you have a song named after you and everything."

Violet laughed back. "Figures it'd be the one that's as high-strung as I used to be."

Ashley smirked to herself. "Wow, I'd never guess you two were sisters."

Speaking of which, Terra left the group of their discussion and went off to see Solana next. She found the turian navigator joining Wrex, Garrus, Cortez, and Javik in ganging up on Joker. "What's going on over here?" she asked as she slid behind the bar to take Garrus' side, the sniper not even noticing as he slid his arm around her waist when she did.

"These guys are giving me a hard time for my aim," Joker shook his head.

"No, we're giving you a hard time because you're not even trying to improve it," Cortez corrected, "What happens the next time someone boards us?"

"Assuming the commander isn't around to shatter their leg bones for setting foot on her deck? There's an emergency weapons locker right there on the bridge."

"A weapon you can't get to is no weapon at all," Garrus retorted, "When's the last time you actually trained with a firearm?"

Joker shrugged. "Probably about the same time I got the butt-kicking robot as my copilot."

"That's no excuse!" Solana cut in sharply, "What if you have to save EDI someday?"

"The turian is correct," Javik agreed (and him agreeing with one of them was a sight to see), "Pilots are warriors, too."

"You know what this is?!" Wrex said, "It's a man emergency! Take this kid out back and make him do target practice!"

"Maybe we should," Terra found herself admitting, "Come on, Joker, you already forgetting the Collector attack?"

"You're just proving my point!" Joker countered, "If I'd fired a shot back then, I would've gotten mobbed!"

"It still would've been nice to have backup at the sushi place. …maybe then, you wouldn't have been bait."

"OK, that's just not fair!"

"There is a combat simulator on the strip," Cortez suggested.

"Ah, let the guy take it slow," Solana intercepted, "Maybe we should take it back to basics. I could even show you a few tricks. Garrus taught Terra, after all, so anyone can do it."

Terra blinked at her. "I'm not sure which one of us you just insulted, but I demand you take it back."

"Hey, all in good fun, sis."

"If we're gonna worry about this at all," Joker cut back in, "could we wait until tomorrow? We're trying to have fun tonight."

Solana gave him a warning glare. "Don't make this strike one, Moreau."

"Ooh," Garrus winced, "you don't wanna see her on strike three."

Joker seemed to realize he was fully outnumbered and set to grumbling about the matter. Terra, with a brief moment to kiss Garrus and ignore the others' responses, went off to check on the others again. She did notice Joker's scheming look on her way out, but she didn't pay it much mind until she walked by again five minutes later to the sound of Cortez losing a drinking game and getting berated by both of the Vakarian siblings for falling for an obviously baited duel. Joker left the room beaming at having gotten out of it, pointedly not paying attention to how Terra was shaking her head at him before she headed down the hall.

She was on her way back upstairs when she heard Kasumi's voice in the downstairs bedroom. Not sure whether to be confused or suspicious, she went in to see what was going on and— "_Kasumi_!"

"Oh," the thief smiled innocently as she came out of her cloak to face her old commander in the closet, "Hey, Shep."

"You're going through my drawers?!"

Kasumi just shrugged. "I go through everyone's drawers."

Terra groaned. "Why can't you just relax and mingle like a normal person?"

Kasumi gave her a look as if the question made no sense. "Why would I want to do that?"

Terra sighed, seeing the thief's point but not a way to argue it. "Just promise you won't actually take anything."

"I know my boundaries, don't worry. And thanks for the invite. I'm having a great time."

"…by your strange standards…" Terra quickly turned to leave the room as Kasumi turned her cloak back on and returned to sifting through the closet. Solana caught her on the way out, having abandoned the guys' mishandled attempts at talking Joker into training and come over to spend some time with Terra again. The two of them took a room to themselves to "girl talk" like the old days on Palaven, as much sisters now as they were then.

By the time they came back to the rest of the party, all the previous disagreements and attempts to blow off steam had reached their natural endpoints. Starting with how James and Jacob were embroiled in a push-up contest on the balcony.

"I see you're having fun over here," Terra shook her head as she came over to check on them.

"Yeah," James huffed between pushes, "Yeah, we're good."

"Are you sure? Jacob seems to be lapping you."

That was when Kasumi came out of her cloak to reveal that she had left the closet to come sit on James' back. "Well, nobody's perfect. How's it going down there?"

James promptly gave out beneath her weight, leading the others to start laughing. He growled as he pushed Kasumi aside and ignored Jacob's flippant attempts at helping him back to his feet. "Alright! Alright! I'd like to see the rest of you do any better!"

"Oh, I can do even better than _that_," Liara retorted, "I could float you off this balcony without even breaking a sweat!"

"Oh, I know you could…but do you have the _cojones_ to try?"

Liara took that as a challenge, immediately raising her arm and calling on her power to lift James off the floor. "You were saying?"

"Wow," James noted, "This actually feels kind of cool!"

"Ooh!" Violet started bouncing, "Do me next!"

Terra laughed to herself as she turned to let them have their fun. She checked the rest of the rooms upstairs to see what everyone was up to, but she found them all empty.

…except for Grunt sitting half-asleep in a running shower. She couldn't help but listen in on his mumblings and snicker to herself. These mumbling included but were not limited to "Salarians have wiggly arms," "Sad hanar can't wear sweaters," "Who's a space cowboy? Me!", "Sharks!", "Gimme more, gimme more…Fishdog Food Shack," "I found this blue rock for you, Liara," "Are you talking to me? You must be talking to me…", "See? Four! Pay up!", "I'm a pretty bird," and Terra's personal favorite "Shotgun. Every time."

Leaving Grunt to rest and trying not to laugh at the sound of his snoring, she headed downstairs. It was nice to see everyone just cutting loose and spending some time together. It was also confusing to see a bunch of empty bottles lined up on the bar. At least until Zaeed, Wrex, and Javik popped out from around the corner and behind the couches to take aim on them.

Terra jumped to get out of the line of fire, though they thankfully all recognized her and held fire. "What are you guys doing?!"

"We found something to shoot!" Wrex declared excitedly.

"I thought I made it clear we were trying to not break anything!"

"Relax," Zaeed waved her off, "They're all loaded with practice slugs and we're all professionals here! …some of us with no depth perception, but it's fine."

Terra groaned, shaking her head. "Right. You guys just…have fun, I guess." That said, she turned the corner to find Joker sitting on the couch and EDI talking to him.

"Jeff?" EDI was saying.

"Yes, EDI?" Joker asked.

"At social events like this, it is customary to dance with friends or loved ones. Would you dance with me?"

"It's gonna take more than a polite request to make that happen."

"I have recordings of you talking in your sleep that would make for a highly amusing extranet video."

"Alright, now that's cheating!"

Terra sighed, stepping over to EDI. "Hey, EDI. He won't dance with you?"

"Hello, Terra," EDI said, "He will not."

Terra shrugged. "Well, I will."

Joker looked at her as he got to his feet. "You—ha, ha, ha! HA, HA, HA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh! AHAHAHAHAHA! …_HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!_ HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! …_ha_! …oh…" He sighed. "…seriously, though, don't go there." He then plopped back into his seat.

Terra just glared at him, trying to take the mocking in stride (vigorous and lengthy though his laughter was…). "Then maybe you should dance with her."

"Other people are dancing, Jeff," EDI pointed out.

"Yes, they are," Joker countered, "And I am sitting here, enjoying my drink."

"…Jeff…" Terra got onto him.

"No!"

"…_Jeff_…!"

"NO!"

"JOKER!"

He groaned. "Fine!" He got up and turned to EDI, who then started dancing with him.

Terra smirked at the two before shaking her head at them and walking away. Everyone she hadn't caught up with yet had improvised a dance floor in the kitchen.

It was against her better judgment that she bothered to join in.

Traynor struggled not to start laughing. "Has she always been like this?"

"Hey, Terra's saving the galaxy," Tali chided, not even losing her rhythm, "You have to forgive a few…_eccentricities_."

"It's…very enthusiastic."

"It is impressive," Samara commented. Terra couldn't help but wonder if she was being sarcastic or if justicars were not capable of such and she was just being ironic.

"Hey!" Garrus finally cut in, "That's my girl you're—" He made it halfway through the sentence before he started laughing. "Ah! Almost kept it straight. Terra, dear, you were right, you can't dance to save your life."

Terra just smirked at him. "Maybe I just need the right partner." She accented this statement by turning her last "move" into a shift in his direction, extending her hand.

He smirked back as he caught the message, taking hold of her hand and giving it a sharp tug.

She spun right into his arms, smiling at him as the others started, for once, responding with whistles and encouragement rather than mocking and jeers. "See?"

He smiled back, nuzzling against her. "Guess you're stuck with me then."

Terra spent the rest of the night following her friends' lead and cutting loose to have fun with them all, though she did still naturally give Garrus a lot of her attention. It was the most free she'd felt in years, possibly even since before the raid. She didn't want this day to end at all, but time kept ticking past and tomorrow was constantly on its way. Stupid time, not cutting her some slack for once.

Still, it was her philosophy in life to cling to memory where she couldn't cling to the moments themselves. And she knew better than most how to immortalize her memories. Though the thought of all the drawings she could make from the night made her realize she should have something they could _all_ hang onto no matter how they might separate. So she quickly called Glyph over and asked the drone to act as a camera, yelling over the music for everyone to gather around.

Before the night was over, Terra made sure everyone had a copy of the resulting photo on their omni-tool drives. Glyph took this a step further for her, programming the photo into the vid-screen by the bar. It was safe to say that, even against her paintings, that was the decoration Terra most appreciated in the apartment.

And that this was a night none of them would soon be forgetting.


	82. Towards the End

See? What'd I tell you? ;)

Chapter 82: Towards the End

I have seen much suffering  
I have fought and bled on the road to victory  
Yet my greatest victory was not in battle  
I am only as strong as those who stand beside me

Terra had known it was a great night. She was only convinced it was perfect when she woke up the next morning and found she was still happy. Then again, this might not have been a direct result of the party itself and memory thereof so much as for two other reasons. The first reason was that she had managed to go the whole night without a single nightmare, blissfully enclosed in the kind of exhaustion that comes from a long day of joy and excitement rather than the weary exhaustion that had been plaguing her for months. The second reason, of course, was the feeling of waking up wrapped in the arms of her future husband.

She smiled as she realized he was awake, too. "Hey. How do you feel?"

Garrus smiled back as she kissed his mandible. "Like I wish we could do last night all over again…and again…and again…" As he said so, he leaned in to kiss her.

She smirked as she started to sit up. "And you'd still be trying to keep up with me." Ignoring his scoff of feigned offense and his admiring gaze, she pulled herself to her feet. "Come on. Let's see if everyone else if up yet."

"Right. Oh! And, uh…" He gave a small nervous laugh as he reached over to wrap an arm around her shoulders. "Just on the off chance that you maybe accidentally set off an alarm you didn't know you had, just remember the code 'IHEARTGARRUS.' Punch it into the keypad—preferably before any timers go off—and, if you can't, well…blame Zaeed. And run for your life."

Everyone else was either already awake or waking up now. Some of them had even been so kind as to adopt positions to help everyone else recover from the "wild night," James cooking breakfast, Miranda making tea, and Violet returning to her post at the piano (playing very gently and soothingly for the sake of Joker, who was bent over at the bar whining about people walking too loudly for his aching head).

Terra took the time to check in on everyone. Most of them merely thanked her for letting them be a part of the evening, though some of them resolved to keep her cheered up for as long as possible before they headed in. The latter mostly came from EDI telling her about how some of the neighbors had complained about the noise and she had put their bodies in the incinerator ("That was a joke."), Zaeed telling her where he'd hidden the last of her levo bacon ("Figured it was fair payback for all the times you saved mine."), and Solana attempting to delay the inevitable with talk of the wedding ("No sense waiting until the last minute to plan all this out, especially if it means doing _this_ again afterwards.").

Jack was the one who surprised her. The biotic was doing pull-ups on the bar in the guest bedroom closet doorway. "Hey, Shepard."

Terra gave her an impressed look. "You're looking well considering how hard I saw you going at it last night."

Jack smirked. "Best part of having an overcharged biotic amp. No hangovers."

"Lucky you." Shaking her head, she glanced out the door and across the apartment to the piano. Violet had finished the piece she was playing and taken a moment to rest her fingers. True to form, though, she took the lack of objection as call for an encore and kept playing. Terra couldn't help but smile. That was the Vi she remembered.

Jack finally jumped down from the bar and turned to Terra. "You know, I was there when they brought Vi to the Academy. Didn't know who she was, obviously, but I felt for her. There she was, shivering, malnourished, bruised, scarred, and terrified. She was still convalescing from the surgery to remove the slavers' implant—from what the guys who dropped her off said, she'd _begged_ them for it, said she couldn't bear to think of it turning on again."

Terra didn't like to think of it, but since she wasn't likely to hear of this from any other source and figured Jack was going somewhere with it, she gave the biotic her full attention.

"She kept to herself. Curled up in dark corners, fiddling with her hands. Wouldn't let anyone touch her. Barely let anyone talk to her or even look at her. It wasn't until David started trading math problems with her that we found out her name. I wasn't exactly a teacher to her, so I didn't spend as much time with her as I did with Prangley and the others." She smirked with a scoff. "If I had, I might have noticed the resemblance. But I got her, you know? I knew what it was like to be tied down in some dark room just trying to stay alive, to stay sane, while people _used_ you…" She sighed. "She managed it better than I did. She probably could've fought her way out even without some fancy biotic upgrades if she wasn't implanted…and if she'd had anywhere to go. Looking back, I was lucky that Cerberus didn't take it that far."

Terra didn't like to think of her sister suffering like that, but she saw Jack's point. It was true, after all. _She is a Shepard._ "…I guess I should thank you for looking out for her until I got there."

"Yeah, well, let's admit it. In the end, she looked out for herself. She was the one who hid in one of the most secure areas, one Cerberus wasn't likely to check, and had David seal her in. You were the one who wound up looking out for her. In the same amount of time she spent at the Academy, you've actually managed to help her put the past behind her."

Terra smiled. "She needed a family, like the _Normandy_."

Jack smirked back. "Or at least her big sis."

"Feeling shorted, Jack?"

"Nah, I work best on my own. …at least, I did before the kids got to me."

Terra rolled her eyes. "You love them."

"Shut up."

"You're not denying it." Before the biotic could retort, Terra left the room.

Terra, in between getting breakfast, spent the next hour talking with her guests, enjoying their time together while she still could. Liara, Joker, and Miranda were the only ones who said so out loud, but they all seemed to agree that it was strange to see everyone in one place. "Strange," their exact words were, "but perfect."

She was sad to see it end. But when her omni-tool rang with a message that the _Normandy_ was ready to launch again, she knew it had to. So with one last appreciative glance at the apartment and the gathered crewmen within it, she headed off for the docks, entrusting Joker and Garrus to see everyone out. When she arrived at the docks, she stepped over to the railing overlooking the docks and watched the _Normandy_ as the techs all left it so the crew could return. She smiled as she leaned against the railing, content to simply watch her beloved ship in admiration.

It seemed like it had only been five minutes before the crew came up behind her to see them off. Garrus immediately took her side, taking her hand on the railing. "So," he sighed, "guess it's back to the fight."

She nodded, her thumb absentmindedly rubbing his talons. "At least we're almost through it. And we got a pretty fantastic party first." She regretted the thought that came over her when she said so. "Maybe the last one."

He shook his head. "That doesn't sound like my girl. You're gonna find a way to win this. And when it's over…" He smiled, his other hand coming over to pointedly grasp the finger carrying her ring. "…I'll be there."

She beamed, clinging to the thought as she clung to him, and laid her head on his shoulder.

He held onto her as they all turned their gazes out the viewing glass to the _Normandy_. "Best times of my life have been with you…and the best of those have been on that ship." He nuzzled against her briefly before reluctantly letting go so he could turn to head back aboard. "It's been a good ride."

She nodded, watching her gathered crewmates turn to go back to the ship. Back home. "…the best." With one last glance out the window, she hurried off after them to retake her place at the command post. The apartment had been wonderful for a getaway, but she only felt like everything was right when she was back aboard the _Normandy_.

An hour later (she'd start skipping the pre-flight checks next time, she wanted to appreciate this particular takeoff while it lasted), they were en route from the Citadel to the Horsehead Nebula. Along the way, EDI was able to confirm that she had traced the location of Cerberus' HQ and that all their friends who hadn't come back aboard the ship were safely back at their respective posts. Terra might have been imagining that the _Normandy_ was riding smoother than ever now, though, considering it still took them the better part of the day just to get to the Horsehead Nebula (though that was probably for the best since some of the crewmen, especially Tali, were still sleeping off the party).

Once they were out of the relay network and starting the FTL flight towards the Anadius system, Terra contacted Admiral Hackett and let him know they were ready to go. He confirmed that the fleets were in position and the Crucible was ready except for the Catalyst, but once they launched the assault, they'd be pulling a lot of support away from the garrisons against the Reapers and would likely incite an attack of opportunity of some sort. They would have to be ready to start moving towards reclamation of occupied territory _immediately_ after Cerberus went down. It was risky.

But all they had left was risks. If they waited, the Reapers would bleed those territories dry until there was nothing left to retake. They had to move. So Terra told Hackett to give the order. This time tomorrow, Cerberus would be done for good.

She should've taken a considerable amount of satisfaction from that. So why did she still feel a slowly rising dread inside her?

While the crew was preparing for the last lights out before the endgame, Terra retreated to her cabin and set to work in her sketchbook. Her drawing had always been able to calm her. What she was working on now genuinely brought her smile back and made her forget that creeping anxiety.

Though even that paled in comparison to the feeling when she heard a certain voice break through her concentration. "So this is how you prepare for missions now?"

She smiled. "I have a few different methods, yeah."

Garrus smiled back as he came over to sit down beside her. "You know what the best part is about a battle that decides the fate of the whole galaxy?"

"Winning it?"

"That, too, I guess. But I was thinking that it's a good excuse to remind the people you care about that…" He looked down at where his hand had, almost without thought, taken hold of hers, his other drifting to rest on her thigh. "…well, you care about them."

She closed her sketchbook and set it aside, her attention entirely caught in his eyes.

Just as his was caught in hers. "And there's no one I care about more than you."

She beamed, kissing his scars. "Right back at you."

Without another word, they fell into each other. Terra felt her fears dissolving at his touch. He was her solace at times like this. It meant more than words could say that, even as they rode towards the end, he was still right there beside her. Even more, he was enough to make her forget what was ahead. When she finally fell asleep again wrapped up in him, she was content.

He was even more so, clinging to his mate and sifting her hair between his talons. He didn't fall asleep as quickly as she did, simply watching her sleeping form. After what seemed like an hour, he found his curiosity getting the best of him and reached to take her sketchbook so he could see what she had been working so diligently on.

A perfect drawing of the group photo from the party. In her hand, though, it seemed even more naturally captured than the real thing. She knew them all well enough to show their true selves in those careful strokes. He couldn't help but smile as he saw what that night—and the people who had shared it with her—really meant to her. Maybe when all this was over, he'd share it with their friends where Glyph had shared the photo itself. Maybe.

But now was not the right time for his curiosity. The second he had let go of her, the darkness in her mind had come flooding back in.

_She had walked through this forest before. All the trees were dead and yet there was no light to speak of. Everywhere was dark and yet there were still shadows. The shadows came alive behind her at every turn, but it was the child that drew her attention. The child ran through the trees without a care even though she could feel his terror on the wind. Every time, she raced after him. Every time, her pace slowed beyond her control and he lost her at the first turn._

_Tonight was different. This nightmare was worse._

_She had been plagued by recurring nightmares before. After Eden Prime, she had become familiar with having more than one recurring nightmares vying to be the one that came calling when she at last fell asleep. Tonight, so much was weighing upon her that all of these warring night terrors came through at once._

_The shadows that stalked her still whispered in the voices of the fallen ("Had to be me. Someone else might've gotten it wrong."—"Shepard-Commander…does this unit have a soul?"—"Go get Williams and get out of here. It's the right choice, and you know it, Ash."), but when she accidentally brushed against one, instead of passing through it like air, the dead forest flashed blood red and the trees were replaced with visions of the Protheans' harvest._

_The child still disappeared when she cornered him, but when she turned to search for his reappearance in the distance, the trees behind caught fire for just long enough to permeate the air with the scent of smoke and metal and burning vegetables, the sounds of gunshots and screams echoing in ceaseless waves._

_She did still finally catch up to the boy and reach for him, but he wasn't alone this time, leaping into the arms of…her? She froze in shock when the fire started, engulfing not just the boy but the soldier who should've saved him. She finally brought herself to take a step forward, not even sure what she could do, only for the forest to shift beneath her feet. She tumbled down a hill and into a hole._

_A hole that closed behind her._

_Just as she started to pull herself to her feet, fighting to reach her point of entry before she lost it in the complete and utter darkness, the ground she'd fallen on came alive with the roots of the dead trees and started to tie her down. All that was left was to call out for help. She was met with the all too familiar feeling of a complete and utter lack of air cutting through her cries, swallowing her voice in bitter cold and searing heat. In her experience, that was a sensation only to be followed by the oblivion of death's embrace. But here, she was alone even then, trapped and helpless as what should've been deafening silence filled with the whispers of the shadows as they traded the words of the fallen for the taunts of those she failed. She couldn't fight, could barely breathe…_

_Someone was supposed to pull her out of here. Someone was supposed to save her._

So when he finally caught the scent of her distress, felt her weight shifting haltingly, and heard her struggling just to breathe, someone did. "Terra!" He tossed the sketchbook aside without a thought and crawled over to take hold of her. "Terra, wake up!"

It took no small amount of shaking to rouse her. Even when she did wake, she immediately thrashed out so hard he jumped back and almost screamed. When he finally took hold of her long enough to calm her down and she saw he was there, she found herself falling into him yet again. This time in tears.

He held her close, his talons drifting possessively across her back. "I'm here. It's OK."

She clung to him in silence as she fought to stop crying and take solace in him again. It wasn't as easy now that the fears he'd chased away had brought themselves out with a vengeance.

"What happened?" he asked when she finally calmed enough for him to bring her to face him, "We took that break so this would stop."

She sighed. "It did…but it also made me realize just how much we have to lose."

"Terra, we could've lost 100 times before now. We never have. Every bullet we've ever dodged could've been the one to end it all, but we made it this far."

"…I know. I just…"

He didn't let go of her. He was used to being the one she leaned on, the only one allowed to see how vulnerable she really was. But it was only now he heard this dread acknowledged that he realized he shared it. "…I know we're going to win this. I know you'll finish this. I do. …but deep down, I'm still afraid of losing you."

She simply looked at him, seeing the truth behind his eyes and even hearing it in his sub-vocals where usually only another turian could. "…I know the feeling."

"Not like I do. I had to go two years without you. I can't do that again. Not now." His talons were practically shaking at the thought of it as they slid down her arm to rest on her ring. "…I want to call you Terra Vakarian just once."

She gave him a sympathetic glance before finding her gaze locked on the ring. Looking at the gleaming sapphire bird on the silver band and knowing what it meant to them both, though, on top of hearing those words… She smiled as a thought came over her. "In my heart, I was always Terra Vakarian."

He recognized the words. From the message she had rigged to send to him after her demise, where she had confessed her love for him just before going on to show him. He had held onto that message for those two years, constantly reminding himself that what they'd had was real. Hearing it now, given new meaning…in a way, it was all he needed.

And in a way, it was all _she_ needed, too. Finding herself overcome with a new resolve, she turned to her mate again. "Two things." She laid her hand on his scars, keeping his gaze firmly locked on hers. "Promise me right now that we will make it through this, but if we do go down…we go down together."

Without hesitation, he nodded, laying his hand on hers. "Promise."

"And second…" She smirked as she withdrew her hand. "Let's do it."

He gave her a look of utter confusion. "…do what?"

"Humans have big ceremonies. And we'll still be doing that to make it official and have everyone else involved." Her smirked turned to a hopeful beam. "But we can do it the turian way. Right now."

Garrus looked at her in amazement. It was true, turian bonding ceremonies were much more intimate than human weddings, usually composed simply of the two being joined making their promises in an area presided over by the spirits. The chosen area was usually a family home, a braving ground, or a lake or field—places of unity, bravery, or beauty. The _Normandy_, on the other hand, was all of the above. They would still need to declare themselves to someone of higher authority (a parent, superior officer, etc.) afterward to be considered married rather than simply bonded, but since they were already mated…well, there was nothing to stop them. "You really want to…?"

"If I didn't, love, I wouldn't have said yes." So she held out her hand.

It was sudden, to say the least. But there was not a doubt in his mind that Terra Shepard was the only person in the galaxy he could ever be with and that he wanted to be with her for the rest of his life. If a "just in case" bonding was what it took to soothe their worries, he was willing to do it. So without a moment's hesitation, he took her hand.

And she spoke the words of his people. "Garrus Vakarian, I pledge my heart to you."

Hearing those words on her voice struck him to the core. Yet he still didn't hesitate before doing the same. "Terra Luna Shepard, I pledge my heart to you."

She smiled, so gleeful she almost cried, and laid her head on his. "When you need me, I will be there."

He smiled back, nuzzling closer. "When you are hurting, I will protect you."

"When you are lost, I will find you."

"Whatever you face, I will also."

"Only duty shall take me from your side…"

"…and let nothing but death part us."

They both felt a certain sense of finality come over them as the words echoed into the empty space of the cabin. They'd done it. It wasn't official just yet, but they were bonded. It was as if they were testing the waters of the sea they were planning to spend the rest of their life in. They weren't disappointed. It was perfect.

Terra smiled again, her eyes alight as they met his. "You may now kiss the bride."

Garrus laughed. Then he did.

It was no different from any other kiss they'd shared, but it felt different all the same. It was as if they were part of each other now and this was simply how they belonged. At last, they laid down on the bed together.

They were mated. Now they were bound to each other. Time to prove it.

A half hour later, they both fell asleep. Safely wrapped up in each other even then, no nightmares came for the rest of the night. All that was left was to end this so they could have the future they'd fought so hard for.

And if they went down, they'd go down together.


	83. Cronos

Chapter 83: Cronos

The time has come  
To fight or defend  
The battle has begun  
Soon it must end

Cerberus HQ was officially called Cronos Station. Though it was spelled differently, this was clearly named after Chronos, the Greek god of time. Terra's specialty was poetic symbolism, yet even she couldn't see what the Illusive Man had meant by this decision. If she was going to name her organization after the guardian of the Underworld, surely she'd call the main base Tartarus or Hades. Perhaps he had considered that too far, an unfortunate correlation, and taken it a different path as some twisted commentary on the nature of change and time and the things that stayed constant. Whatever the Illusive Man's logic, Terra had no interest in puzzling it out. All she cared about was making sure this station's time was up.

The Fifth Fleet, under Hackett's command, raced in alongside the _Normandy_ to bombard the station and take out the defense ships. Terra took a few moments to appreciate the sight of Alliance ships tearing Cerberus apart from the war room before preparing to mobilize her own team to infiltrate the base itself. They had to get the Prothean VI back before they could do anything that might destroy the station, which meant they'd have to move fast.

When Terra turned to leave the room and start assembling her squad, though, she found EDI at the doorway. "Shepard," the AI stated plainly, "I should accompany you on this mission."

Terra gave EDI a confused look. "Why's that?"

"Cerberus will have automated defenses. With my knowledge of their systems and this body's updated protocols, I hold the greatest chance of ensuring your survival."

Ah. Terra couldn't exactly argue with that. "Grab your gear."

Within five minutes, Joker was bringing them up to approach the base, assuring Terra that the stealth systems could bring them in safe (the irony that the system Cerberus recreated was the very thing that would undo them had not been lost on her).

"Shepard," EDI said as she left the copilot seat, "I am ready."

"Wait, _what_?!" Joker immediately reacted, "You can't go to Cerberus HQ! They could have a virus or a kill switch or—!"

"I will be fine, Jeff."

Terra could tell that wasn't the best reassurance. When Joker reported that it was time to head out, she stepped up to lay a hand on his shoulder. "I know what it's like. Don't worry, I'll keep her safe."

Joker nodded. "Alright. Thanks, commander."

Terra raced down to the shuttle bay to find EDI, Garrus, and Cortez already scrambling in. The following shuttle ride was less of a cruise and more of a crash, but at least they made it into the hangar. Terra, EDI, and Garrus crawled out the side of the shuttle that wasn't exposed to two dozen Cerberus troopers, using the shuttle itself as cover as they started taking down the enemy numbers with sniper shots and tech attacks before wading into the thick of it. Cerberus sent a lot of reinforcements, including an Atlas, but it wasn't enough to stop the _Normandy_ squad. Nothing ever was.

Though the alarms that went off after the fight came to a stop were not exactly a sign they were winning. _"Intruders detected. Activating Achilles protocol."_

"Shepard!" EDI warned them, "Cerberus is attempting to vent the hangar!"

"Uh, you can stop that, right?!" Terra demanded.

"I need an activate console! Try the upper level!"

So Terra led them in a scramble up the nearest ladder and located a control room, pointing EDI right to it. The AI, as ever, failed to let her down and managed to disable the vent procedure. Good. Terra didn't want to die by spacing _twice_. It was bad enough the first time. "Can you open the doors?"

"No," EDI answered, "However…I can access their fighter launch controls." She demonstrated by calling the next fighter up to the launch pads and then locking it in place so that no more could launch from this hangar.

Terra gave EDI a curious look. "I understand shutting down the launches, but why did you call up—?" Then she caught on. "_Oh_! EDI, I like the way you think."

EDI smiled back before leading them around to the control room on the other side, dispassionately removing what little Cerberus resistance was deployed on this level, and hacking into the other control terminal. "Overriding safeties. The fighter should now launch toward the hangar door."

Terra then proceeded to drop back to the lower level, locate the launch clamp, and…

Words could not describe the grandeur of watching one of Cerberus' own fighters crash through the entire base.

Cerberus sent out one last contingent of reinforcements, including another Atlas, but this once again proved no match for them. Now it was just a matter of following the wreckage to the heart of the station. EDI proved herself invaluable for this mission, not just in circumventing the entire station's security but in predicting their troops' movements and defense arrangements. It was easier than Terra had dared to hope to plow through the garrisons straight to a lab.

EDI immediately started hacking the door. "I will open the path forward," she reported, "In the meantime, that console has yet to be scrubbed." She gestured to the side, pointing out the console in question. "It contains data I believe you will find quite interesting."

Terra stepped over to activate the console. "What am I looking at?"

"Project Lazarus. Your reconstruction."

Terra almost froze when she heard that. A year ago, she'd have plowed through this entire console, demanding to know exactly what Cerberus had done to her. Now, she hesitated. She didn't understand why until, finally, she brought herself to access the first entry in the data log. She'd had good reason to hesitate. She barely heard the voices on the video log over the actual data display.

_Except for the Cerberus scientist quite clearly saying "Sir, Shepard is clinically brain-dead! And after that much trauma, that long with no oxygen…we cannot overcome nature."_

She'd heard from Jacob and Liara how torn up her corpse had been when Cerberus had taken it. It was only as she heard those words and looked at the results of actual medical scans that she saw _just how torn up_ that really was.

Garrus was just as shocked as she was at first, struggling not to envision what these scans indicated. Those years had been hard enough to face without letting himself remember how she had died or what it must've done to her. When she'd come back, he hadn't given himself a chance to care about the how, especially after Cerberus was out of the picture. But now, he realized it was Terra's own reaction he should've been concerned with. He stepped closer, reaching over to take her hand. She didn't fight him or return the gesture. She simply stared at the console in shock. "Are you OK?"

"…I didn't realize it was that bad," Terra said.

"And even that wasn't enough to keep you down," he commented.

She wanted to be amused or flattered, but she couldn't deny the truth. "_They_ brought me back, Garrus. I had no control over anything that happened here." She shuddered to think of those scientists hovering over her lifeless body, of even one of them touching her. But that wasn't even the worst part. The data so far was on the scans when she was brought in. Miranda had since confessed that—Terra's worst fears realized—she had suggested implanting that body with a control chip, only for the Illusive Man to shoot her down (bet he was kicking himself about now). She wouldn't have been able to stop that. What if…? "What if they'd gone through with Miranda's 'countermeasures'? Or they'd decided to reprogram my memories? Or…" The last thought that struck her sent her into shock again when she realized it could possibly have _actually_ happened. "We know about the clone now. What if there was more than one?"

Garrus finally drew her to turn from the console to him. "Terra, listen to me. You're real. I'd know. I know you better than anyone. …I knew the moment I saw you."

Terra couldn't fight a smile at that statement. He did know her. Just as she knew him. Because of that, she knew he was right, and no clone or android or puppet could ever fool him. Perhaps it was simply in the nature of mating to know your partner better than you know yourself. It was certainly part of the deal to be there for your mate whenever they needed you. So she didn't hesitate as much to access the next entry in the log.

_"Tissue regeneration is proceeding," the scientist said, "The helmet kept the brain intact, for all that's worth."_

_"Lawson will find a way," the Illusive Man insisted._

_"Sir, Shepard is an Alliance soldier. As far as she knows, we're a terrorist organization!"_

_"I'm not looking for a dance partner. We need Shepard and Shepard needs resources. She'll work with us."_

Garrus felt the way Terra tensed up before he saw it. "He really had you boxed in."

Terra shook her head. "I knew what Cerberus was. I thought I was playing them when I strung them along for the resources, but he was one step ahead the whole time, wasn't he?"

"You did what you had to, Terra. And I was right there with you."

…yeah. He was. Always. She clung to the sentiment, told herself it had been for the best, but he was still the one holding her up. Even as she forced herself to open the final log entry.

And listen to how the Illusive Man had purposely put together a crew guaranteed to get Terra "invested"—Daniels, Donnelly, Joker, and Chakwas, specifically. On the one hand, this especially came back to bite him since said crewmen were much more likely to side with Terra than with him when the time came. On the other hand, though, this was precisely what put all of them in danger when the Collectors attacked the ship.

Garrus glared at the screen, raging inside. "He needs to die."

"On that, dear," Terra nodded, "we couldn't agree more." She turned to EDI. "How's that door coming?"

"We are clear to proceed," EDI nodded, lowering her omni-tool so the door would open.

Terra knew good and well that her trusty AI would never have taken that long just to open a door and had clearly been giving her and Garrus time to themselves. She hoped the silently appreciative glance she sent EDI's way was enough to let her know it did not go unnoticed.

The next few halls were more of the same as far as Terra was concerned, no more effective at slowing them down than the last. It was only a matter of time before they made it to the next console room. EDI dropped the pretense, simply hacking through the door in a split second, but Terra's curiosity prompted her to investigate the console anyway.

She was not disappointed.

After watching the first data log on this console, she turned in shock to EDI. "_You_ were that rogue AI on Luna?!"

EDI nodded almost solemnly. "Yes."

"And they mixed you with Reaper code." Terra shook her head. "Guess we didn't exactly get off on the right foot."

EDI shrugged. "Gaining awareness under such circumstances was…confusing. Fortunately, you showed me how to use it."

Terra smirked, playing the next log.

This entry could be summed up entirely with the Illusive Man's one word: "_It_."

Terra shook her head. "Shows what he knew."

"Maybe, maybe not," EDI commented, "It is unlikely anyone without Jeff's severe emotional attachment to his ship would have been willing to unshackle me."

"I don't know," Terra smirked, "With that voice…" She may have imagined Garrus snickering behind her, but she focused on playing the last log.

_"If she won't listen to reason," the Illusive Man snapped at the scientists, "I want that ship taken down!"_

_"We're trying, sir!" one of the scientists said, "We can't get through!"_

_"Then shut down the AI and take direct control!"_

_"Sir, last time we tried, EDI flooded our servers with seven zettabytes of…_explicit images_. We think she was trying to make a joke."_

_"_It _doesn't make jokes! …allocate a team for a new project. Codename: EVA. This time we'll make sure it stays loyal."_

As the log ended, Terra turned to EDI in amazement. "You didn't tell us they were trying to shut down the ship."

"The situation was under control," EDI waved her off, "As you would put it, you had bigger fish to fry."

"Seven zettabytes?"

"Most of it was Jeff's. That was—"

"A joke, I know." Terra smiled. "And thank you."

After that (and after Garrus also passed an appreciative glance EDI's way), they headed down the corridor of research labs to the next hall. When EDI stopped to hack another door, Hackett contacted them, let them know the fleet was having trouble breaking through the defenses without damaging the station.

"Sir," Terra finally stood up, "we're in deep and the VI will be in the most defended part of the station. _Don't hold back_."

_"This isn't Elysium, Shepard," Hackett retorted, "We don't need a hero."_

"That's debatable, sir, but I'm serious. We can take care of ourselves. We need to end Cerberus _now_!"

_"Roger that, commander. Fifth Fleet, all forward!"_

It was no more than ten seconds after EDI finally got the door open for them that the station rattled under fire. Terra took no small amount of satisfaction from this, though some small part of her was immediately regretting giving the go-ahead to fire on the station they were in. Either way, she focused on leading them through, dropping into an open shaft that…contained…

"Is that…the human proto-Reaper we killed?!" Garrus demanded.

Terra inspected the hung remains in shock, reaching the same conclusion. "What's left of it. How did they even manage to salvage that much?"

Garrus shook his head in disgust. "All those colonists taken and _processed_ into _that_ and the Illusive Man hangs it up like a trophy!"

Terra scoffed. "He gave it the big talk about being it in for the good of humanity, but he never even cared, did he?"

"I don't know. Maybe he did and then came to care more about studying it. Then the indoctrination changed him and suddenly the dead were just another statistic." He sighed. "Somehow, that seems worse."

"The central core," EDI explained, "analogous to the heart, is functioning. That's what their studies are focused on. We will have to fight our way past it to get through."

Straightforward enough. Until they actually got on the walkways and started fighting.

"I thought hospitals were no fun to fight through," Garrus commented halfway up, tossing a contemptible and uneasy glare at the Reaper embryo's dead eyes, "This is _so_ much worse."

"At least it's not trying to kill us this time," Terra shrugged.

The tight quarters were not conducive to facing the quick-footed Phantoms, but it did put them on even ground with the Nemeses since Garrus and Terra far outstripped any sniper Cerberus could offer in terms of pure skill and instinct. EDI took up crowd control until Garrus could cut them a path and Terra could clear the area entirely, allowing them to head straight up into the next section of the station. As they came up from the walkways to a small computer lab that diverged into a long stairwell, Terra got the sense they were near the end. So they raced past the terminals up to the last room, ready for anything.

The room was empty. But she recognized it from the holo-COMM as the Illusive Man's office, overlooking the grandeur of the twisting star Anadius. Seeing as how he was currently not there, she signaled EDI and Garrus to keep an eye on the perimeter so she could head over to start finishing what they came for.

She'd been sitting for all of three seconds when the holo-COMM turned itself on. _"Shepard," the all too familiar voice sounded over it, "You're in my chair."_

She growled as she stood up and faced him. She reached for her gun, though there was no point since he wasn't actually there, and nodded to EDI to scan the systems for her. "This chair's about all you have left," Terra sneered, not hiding her pleasure at having the upper hand, at returning the favor for all the times he'd looked down on her from this room, "Cerberus is finished."

_The Illusive Man simply shook his head. "Cerberus is an idea. That idea is not so easily destroyed."_

"Wasn't the idea for the good of humanity? Kind of hard to see you following through on that considering what did at Sanctuary!"

_"A necessary risk."_

"An atrocity. And against your own people! Don't you dare try to tell me that was for our own good!"

_"I know I can't convince you. But it doesn't matter anymore. I have another way of accomplishing my goals now."_

Terra glowered at him as she saw his meaning. "The Catalyst. I don't suppose there's any way I can trick you into telling me what it is?"

_"Hardly. I'm done helping you."_

She let her glower turn into an outright fiery glare. "_When did you START_?!"

_She might have been imaging he was rolling his eyes behind his own glare. "Say what you want. I already have what you're looking for."_

She didn't believe he ever dealt in truths (that was clearly against both his name and his nature), but she still turned to check on the terminals. "EDI?"

"I've almost got it," the AI responded as she continued hacking away at the Cerberus system in search of Vendetta.

_"EDI," the Illusive Man said, "I'm surprised at you. I thought you, of all people, would understand."_

Terra told EDI "Don't listen to him" with a scoff. She said it not because she thought EDI could be discouraged but because his words held no weight where she was concerned. He didn't deserve to refer to her with the phrase "of all people" when, from what they saw in those data logs, he clearly didn't think of EDI as any more than a machine even now. He would never see how valuable she was, not like Terra did, and he definitely couldn't sway her from her crew, the closest thing she had to a family.

_"You could've destroyed Eva's body," he continued regardless, "yet you chose to control it."_

"It was necessary," EDI retorted.

_"My point exactly."_

EDI ignored him, inputting a command that at long last freed the Prothean VI.

_"Enjoy your prize, Shepard," the Illusive Man sneered as it came online, "But don't overstay your welcome." With that, he disconnected._

_The VI looked at Terra. "You are attempting to recover me from indoctrinated forces."_

"Yes," Terra answered, "We need to know about the Catalyst."

_"Safety protocols have been overridden. I will comply. The Catalyst enhances dark energy transmissions and coordinates the entire mass relay network. In your cycle, it is known as the Citadel."_

It was as if the entire galaxy had frozen in place, as if the room ran cold and the floor started buckling. Terra couldn't believe what she was hearing. "…what?"

_"The Citadel is the Catalyst."_

Well, it couldn't be said any plainer.

"We were just on the Citadel!" Garrus snapped, "Why couldn't you have just mentioned that the first time?!"

_"Given that the plans for this endeavor revolved around using the Reaper's own technology against them, it was feared that they might attempt to retake control of the station if they learned of its intended use. I was programmed not to reveal this information until the Crucible was ready to be deployed."_

Terra used that knowledge to steel her resolve. "And now it's as ready as it's gonna be. We need to head back to the Citadel and have them evacuate so we can—"

_"That may no longer be possible," Vendetta cut back in, "The one you call the Illusive Man broke through my security protocols and obtained the information before you arrived. He warned the Reapers. The Citadel has been relocated."_

Terra struggled not to start panicking about if the Citadel Defense Force managed to evacuate the station in time, focusing on how they could possibly complete the mission now. "'Relocated'? To where?!"

_"The system you refer to as Sol."_

Terra's early shaken, cold feeling was entirely supplanted with a hollow dread. "…Earth."

_"Correct. Reaper forces will now consolidate around the Catalyst and protect it at all costs. Odds of accessing it will be remote."_

Garrus scoffed. "We specialize in beating the odds."

Terra couldn't help but smirk. Count on Garrus to keep her spirits up. "Then we need to move fast. Let's—"

Of course, that was when a shot went off, shutting down the terminal EDI was standing beside and forcing Vendetta to withdraw.

Terra knew who it was even before she turned to face him with a contemptible sneer. "You."

Kai Leng himself had entered. "He told you not to overstay your welcome."

Terra felt primed to retort that, from all of the three seconds, he'd overstayed his, but she settled for readying her rifle and racing into the fray.

As usual, Leng called in reinforcements at the first opportunity. Terra didn't let that become a problem this time, letting EDI and Garrus take crowd control so she could jump in and take Leng on one-on-one. A few well-placed shots tore through his shields enough for her to get a leg up, dodging his attempted sword strikes to give him a well-deserved kick in the stomach. When he ducked back to slam through the floor to a power source that could recharge his shields, Terra tossed a grenade at his feet, scattering his incoming backup and cutting off his recharge halfway through.

Kai Leng himself, though, avoided most of the blast with a quick backflip, sneering at her as he prepared to dive back in. "You're still slow, Shepard!"

"I'm only slow 'cause I'm not running!" Terra scoffed, proving her point with another grenade toss that forced him to duck back to recharge again.

He ignored the jab, deploying a biotic shield to protect himself.

She took that as a challenge, laying into the shield with her pistol. "You ran on the Citadel…" she snapped between shots, "…you ran on Thessia…and you're running now!"

"Shut up!" he growled as he finally ducked under her shot to storm in again.

"That the best you can do?!" Just as he rushed back in to take a thrust at her with his blade, she stowed the pistol to show him what she was really capable of. She countered his every swing and lunge with a well-timed CQC maneuver, finally sidestepping a downward swipe of his blade to kick off of it and send a swinging kick into his face. She smirked as he recoiled, especially when Garrus, having cleared the room, took the opportunity to get in a few shots. "Let's be honest, you never had a chance!" She drew her pistol back, making his every attempt to dodge just a matter of juggling him between EDI and Garrus' lines of fire as well. "No gunship to save you this time!"

"You can't stop Cerberus!" he shouted even as he ducked their fire from all sides, struggling to find a chance to recharge his shields now.

"Actually, we can!" Letting off one last shot, she dove in. He saw a chance to go for the kill, aiming at the weakest point of her armor with his sword, only for her to feint back and grab hold of his wrist… "But you won't be there to see it."

…for Garrus to fire a round straight through Leng's throat.

Terra couldn't help a triumphant smirk as she tossed the ninja aside. Giving EDI a smile and half-hugging Garrus all the way, she headed back to the terminal to start hacking in for the grand finale.

Only for Kai Leng to slowly pull himself back to his feet the second all their backs were turned. Every step was a struggle, but he managed to use his blade as leverage to limp across the room to the chair Terra was occupying and raise his weapon for the kill.

Garrus turned at the exact last second, panicking at the sight of the sword positioned over his mate's spine and racing to draw his gun again. "TERRA!"

Before he'd even finished calling out, Terra made it clear she saw this coming. Moving on pure rage and instinct, she leapt out of the chair in a whirl and, with one sharp swipe, shattered his sword. Then she drew her omni-blade and thrust it between his ribs. "That was for Thane!" With that, she withdrew her omni-blade, letting it collapse as Kai Leng's body fell to the floor and stayed dead this time.

Garrus gave her an impressed smile.

She returned it. "Let's get out of here."

As they left the station with the VI in tow, Terra used the sum total of her technical prowess on one grand trick, disabling all of the station's defenses for the fleet. Once they were safely extracted to the _Normandy_, she watched in satisfied vindication as the stronghold exploded under fire and was left a field of disintegrated remains.

Now all that was left was to set course for Earth, assemble the fleets, and face the Reapers once and for all.

If only she could be certain it would ever be that easy.

"I told you we could do it," Garrus commented as she stepped past him to get to the galaxy map.

She smiled, stopping in her tracks to savor the feeling of his faith in her. It had never once wavered or failed. He had always believed in her, even before he knew he loved her, and he always would. As she turned to face him, not even caring that they were on the CIC as she gently laid her hand on his scars, she let her thoughts shine through her eyes before she ever spoke them aloud: "…I don't know what I'd do without you."

He kept his eyes on her, silently promising her that such a day would never come.

As she returned her attention to giving what might well be their final heading, she took that promise to heart.


	84. Don't Let This Be Goodbye

Chapter 84: Don't Let This Be Goodbye

As the end approaches  
In glorious battle  
We do not harbor fear  
We look to the after

The _Normandy_ briefly allowed Hackett aboard to start mobilizing the fleets directly from the ship that would be leading them into the thick of it and to brief Terra on their battle plan in person. By the time the admiral was back on his own ship, it seemed to have settled in for everyone that this was it. They were going to Earth, they were taking the fight to the Reapers.

This time tomorrow, their fates would be decided.

Terra knew better than to try reassuring everyone of that prospect. But she still made the rounds, checking in on every last one of her crewmates as they rode towards their final stand.

As they fired up the engines and charted their course, she found Daniels and Donnelly in the engineering deck. "Good luck out there, commander," Donnelly said, "Wish I was joining you."

"No, you don't," Daniels retorted, "I've seen you shoot."

"…OK, then I wish I could shoot better. _Then_ I wish I was joining you."

Terra smiled. She didn't miss the way that Daniels did the same and lightly rested her hand on Donnelly's. It was nice to see them together. She hoped there was a bright future out there for them. She said as much as she left the deck.

As they kicked off the FTL jump back to the relay system, she checked in on Chakwas. "You've come a long way since those days under Captain Anderson," the doctor said, "I'm honored to have served with you. And may I say…good luck."

Terra made it clear how much she appreciated the sentiment. She had come a long way. She only hoped it would be far enough.

As they came within sight of the relay that would take them back to Sol, she came to take up position on the bridge. "You remember that first run to Eden Prime?" Joker asked her, "With that turian Spectre watching us?"

Terra nodded. "Nihlus."

"Told you that mission was gonna be more than we thought."

She smirked. "You also said Spectres were trouble and you didn't like having them aboard."

He shrunk back. "Well…I stand by the first part of that statement. As for the second, well…it's been an honor, commander."

"…likewise, Joker." He had been the best pilot she could've asked for. It seemed wrong to think of not flying this ship with him at the wheel. But she didn't think of that. She focused on this one last run.

One last shot to finish this.

Terra stood at the bridge as they engaged the relay. She watched as her people's home system revealed itself on the other side, Reapers crowded in formation around the closed Citadel situated in Luna's orbital. She was burning with fury and outrage and injustice that those abominations were occupying her home-world. So it was one of the most satisfying and indeed epic moments of her life when all the fleets she had spent so long gathering finally, _finally_ came through the relay just behind her.

Once Joker had confirmed all their ships were present, Terra ordered them into position and, when they were all ready to begin what might be the most important battle of any of their lives, gave the order to fire.

The battle that followed was a series of cannon blasts, explosions, and flier stunt maneuvers that seemed to fill the vast entirety of the Sol system. Though she didn't take the time to let it distract her or stoke her artistic side, Terra couldn't help but admire how the dramatic backdrop of space added to the weight of the battle, to every spark of red light that flew across the field, to every lonely sacrifice and heroic deed. She would have to commemorate it somehow when this was over.

For now, they had a mission. Joker activated the stealth systems so they could dive out from the fight and speed towards Earth itself to pave the way for their ground troops. They would have to move fast. Yet Joker still took the time to hobble out of his chair, salute his commander, and tell her to "Be careful down there." She nodded, saluting back with a comment about staying focused that they both knew was really an "I will if you will. Take care of my ship."

Since the entire squad was involved in the assault, they all had to go in the shuttle down to the surface. It was a bit more cramped than they were used to but, as Garrus, Tali, and Terra reminisced amusedly, nothing compared to when Grunt was crammed in there with them (and Zaeed…and Jack). Through the entire ride over, they held onto that amusement, if only so the real gravity on their endeavor couldn't weigh on them all.

"We could just start making a few friendly wagers," Garrus finally suggested.

Tali scoffed. "Optimistic wagers, in your case."

He gave a look. "A turian military operative versus a quarian mechanic and _I'm_ the optimistic one?"

"Do you remember taking the _Alarei_ back with _half_ my kill count?"

"Yes, because it was flooded with geth, which tilted the odds in your favor."

It was hard to tell behind the helmet, but Tali seemed to be rolling her eyes. "Excuses, excuses."

"I just doubt you'll be hacking any synthetics this time."

"I still have a shotgun."

"Right. I'll be sure to let a few Husks close enough for you to use it."

"Thanks. Although, if they get past me, they'll be right on top of you."

"Have you met my girlfriend? I don't think that'll be an issue."

Terra was struggling not to laugh at her two closest friends' witty banter. They were the two people she could always count on, after all, even if it was just for a good laugh. Truth be told, as she glanced around at the rest of her team's bemused looks, she knew she wouldn't want to be going into this with anyone else.

That thought kept her smiling right up until the point Cortez started the approach to London and turned on the view-screens.

Ashley was the first to descend into outright horror at the sight of one Earth's greatest cities turned into a wrecked battleground. "That's…I hardly recognize it."

James shook his head, growling to himself. "They're gonna pay for this."

Terra didn't say anything, but the look in her eyes and the shudder in her breaths spoke volumes. It was only when Garrus reached over to take her hand that she felt her horror turn to conviction. James was right. This couldn't stand. Not Earth, not Palaven, not any of it. The Reapers were going down if it was the last thing she did.

No sooner had she thought so than the mission went south (ah, before they even landed this time—was that a new record?). There was a Hades cannon blocking their approach. They were going to have to take it out before anyone could land, which meant fighting through a small but densely manned battle zone to reach heavy enough weapons. Not exactly easy, but it still seemed straightforward enough until the entire city seemed to start shaking every time that cannon went off. Terra knew they had to move fast, so she was thankful she had the entire squad behind her for this brief stretch. It didn't exactly help matters when Cortez was shot down—not fatally, but it still meant they were stranded. Still, it was only a matter of five minutes at most before they reached their goal and, in one of the most cathartic explosion Terra had ever instigated, destroyed the cannon. Then it was just a matter of holding out for three more minutes before another shuttle could come by to extract them.

One Terra was delighted to discover was carrying Anderson. "Shepard!" he beamed when he saw her, "You're a sight for sore eyes."

Unprofessional or not, Terra elected not to bother restraining herself and hugged him with a smile. "It's good to see you again."

If she had any reason to regret the action, he dispelled it by hugging her back briefly. "I told you so."

She almost laughed as she stepped back.

He looked between the other occupants, the range of species that Terra had come to accept as normal proof to him of what she'd done. "A galaxy united. Too bad it took the Reapers to bring us together."

"It didn't," Garrus instantly spoke up, "It took Terra."

Before Terra could debate the matter, Anderson nodded in agreement. "Exactly my point. I know you didn't like leaving, Shepard, but no one else could have done what you have."

Terra had always brushed off comments like that, adamant that anyone could be a hero and everyone on her crew was just as capable as she was. But it wasn't just her skill that had won this particular battle. It was her history. What she stood for and believed in was what people had fallen behind. _She_ was their victory.

Now it was just a matter of seeing it through.

The FOB wasn't exactly a fortress, but it would house their troops while they regrouped and prepared for the final push. The squad spread out to oversee what they could, Terra staying behind to observe their incoming troops. Not as many made it as she'd hoped, but she couldn't let that get to her. Especially not when she heard one of the majors tell her that she was an icon to their forces now and seeing her would do more good for their morale than a thousand armies behind them. She headed down to get moving with that in mind, but it was her own morale that won over her actions, bringing her to talk to her all her squad-mates while she still could.

James was right outside the landing zone, checking the organization of their troops. He nodded to her when he saw her approach. "Hey, commander."

She gave him a look. "What, no 'Lola'?"

He smirked. "Right. Sorry. It's just…I was ready to fight, ready to die if I had to, but seeing everything like this…"

Terra nodded. "It's hard. It's not right. But we're gonna _make it_ right. You can't let all this get to you."

"You're probably right."

She didn't stop there, taking his hand in a warrior's salute. "You're a good man, Vega, and a terrific soldier."

James gave her a flattered smile. "Thanks. That means a lot. And good luck out there…Lola."

Ashley was further down the street, watching their artillery take up position. "Terra."

Terra couldn't help a smirk to hear Ashley so casually addressing her by her first name, as if it was simply natural. "You holding up?"

Ashley nodded. "Restless, though. Everything depends on this."

"There's always hope, Ash."

"I know. And you've made it your job to give it to us."

Terra shook her head. "Mostly because I've had friends I could trust there to pick me up when I didn't."

Ashley smirked. "Guess we lost count of all the times we looked out for each other."

"It stopped being a contest. Started being who we are."

"I know. And yet it feels like 1000 years since Eden Prime. So much has happened since then."

"I'll say. You ready to finish it?"

"…aye-aye, ma'am. I'm ready."

The first building Terra came to was a communications outpost. She immediately seized the opportunity to check in on all her friends who weren't stationed directly at the FOB—Zaeed, Jack, Jacob, Kasumi, Cortez, Samara, Miranda, and Grunt. She assured all of them that this was almost over, made plans with all of them for what to do afterwards, even took encouragement from several of them that she could do this. Grunt in particular threatened to stoke her emotional side when he thanked her for getting him out of the tank.

But then she turned to the COMM officer and let him know she had three more calls to make before she could get going. So when he asked who she wanted to connect to, she told him to call Castis Vakarian in the _Normandy_'s war room.

_Castis answered almost immediately, as if he had been waiting. "Terra. I see things are going to plan so far."_

Terra scoffed, shaking her head. "I assume turians have a phrase similar to the human saying 'No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy'?"

_"Something like that. But I was happy to help out the planning all the same."_

She smirked. "Did you just make a joke?"

_"Of course not. Does that sound like something I would do?"_

She wanted to laugh anyway or make some wry comment about how his kids were rubbing off on him. Instead, she found herself turning solemn at the thought she needed to air out while she had the chance: "I don't know if I ever really thanked you. You know, for agreeing to take me in."

_Castis simply looked at her. "There was no need to."_

"Well, all the same, I feel the need to let you know how much I appreciate it. I know you weren't around much, but it still meant a lot to know you were there."

_"…I see. I do look forward to the day I can truly call you my daughter."_

She smiled. "I guess we all do."

_"And I am proud of what you've become. Of all three of you."_

Wow. He'd actually admitted it out loud. She would have to mark this day down on her calendar later. "Thank you. I'll see you when we get back."

_"I'm counting on you not letting me down. Prove me right."_

"That's the plan." After she disconnected, she turned on her heels to tell the COMM officer to call Solana next, practically readying to give him a direct link to the _Normandy_'s nav computer if it would get her on the line faster.

_Solana needed no such prodding to answer immediately. "Terra! Did you win already?"_

Terra laughed. "If only."

_"Told you that you should've taken me with you."_

"Yeah, well, I'm still counting on you to take care of Violet and the safest place for both of you is on the _Normandy_."

_Solana sighed. "Yeah. Remember what I said about not wanting to fly civilian on a military ship?"_

"Sol, I'm serious. You've already been injured once in this mess and I don't want anything to happen to my sister. …either of my sisters."

_Solana smirked. "Fair enough. So long as you realize that means I get to worry about you just as much. We've got wedding plans to make, after all."_

Terra smiled. "So we do. We'll have to set the date once we're back at it."

_"Yeah. I'll be right here waiting. Sis." With that, she gave a mock salute and signed off._

That left one last call. When Terra told the COMM officer she needed to talk to Violet Shepard, she stunned him. Apparently, word hadn't gotten around about her sister's survival and adoption to the crew, but she waved it off for now and told him to connect to the _Normandy_'s AI core. He seemed to think better of questioning her and did so.

_Violet smiled when she answered. "Hey. See you made it."_

Terra nodded. "Halfway."

_"Further than I would've gotten."_

"I'm inclined to disagree. You're like me and Garrus in that regard: you don't let anything get in your way."

_Violet smirked, shaking her head. "Depends on how you look at it, I guess. Still wish there was some way I could help you."_

Terra smirked back. "Well, there's no guarantee COMM chatter will be clear through all the ruckus up there, but I'll leave mine open…if you wanna play me some encouragement."

_Violet smiled again. "That I can do." Her smile faded, though, as a thought came to her that she knew needed to be voiced _now_: "Mom and Dad and Nate…they'd be proud of you."_

Hearing this nearly sent Terra to tears but she held strong and returned with a truth of her own: "You, too, Vi."

_Violet responded in kind. "Stay safe down there, OK? I'll see you soon." With that, she reluctantly disconnected._

Terra hesitated to step back from the holo-COMM, even as she told the officer that she was done. It had just sunk in for her how many people she cared about and how many cared about her. It was as if she was saying goodbye to them all when she walked away from that console.

She finally resolved to add that to the list of reasons they had to win this. _Don't let this be goodbye._

She was still clinging to that thought when she headed up the ramp to cross into the other half of the FOB. Before she could go over the barricade to the other end, she had to pass through the turians' command center. As soon as the door opened, she heard her mate's voice on the other side, dictating their coordination efforts with both the Alliance and the krogan. In a way, this was the role he was meant for as much as hers was meant for her. Her time on Palaven had shaped his path and views as much as it had changed her own.

She smiled to think that she was proud of who he became.

"Commander."

Terra turned in amazement to see Victus standing there. "Primarch. I thought you'd be on Palaven."

"I wanted to return the favor in person," Victus answered, "This war will be won or lost here, to day, on Earth, not Palaven. I want there to be no doubt that we fought to the last soul. So history will record that the turian hierarchy stood among the brave."

Terra nodded. "Of course. And from what I've heard, things are going better on Palaven."

"Yes, Urdnot Wrex was true to his word and gave us time to evacuate our civilians. But our only hope for freeing Palaven irrevocably will be freeing Earth."

"Both my home-worlds in one swing. I'll get right on that."

Victus responded with a wry laugh. "I have no doubt you will. May the spirits watch over you."

"And you, sir." She gave a respectful farewell (no, need a better word, not saying goodbye this time) before turning back to observing the command station. Her turian finally finished passing on orders and messages long enough to notice she was there, smiling at the sight of her. She smiled back before coming over to take his side.

"Ready to win this?" Garrus asked once she was next to him.

"You really think we can?" Terra retorted.

"Oh, I know we can. I know for a fact we're going to kick the Reapers back into whatever hole in dark space they crawled out of, seal them in there for good, and then retire to some little beach on Palaven to live off the royalties from all the vids they'll make about us."

She laughed. "Sounds like a plan." But then, again, that nagging thought crept unbidden into her mind. "…sounds too good to be true."

He quickly took hold of her hand. "It's not. We've earned it, we've bled for it, and we're going to live it." He smirked with a playful nudge. "And maybe even find out what a turian-human baby looks like."

She smiled at the thought. "Now that one genuinely is too good to be true."

"We can dream, can't we?"

"Yeah, but maybe we should focus on something a bit closer in our future." As she said so, she turned her hand so that the finger carrying her engagement ring was facing him (it didn't have as much impact since she was wearing her armor and thus had gloves on over it, but still).

He got the message. "I thought we were waiting until we were through this to start making plans."

"I don't know. The primarch is right there if we wanna declare our bond and have both bases covered at once."

He considered it. "Or ask him right now to officiate the actual ceremony."

"Or both."

"I don't know. Maybe we shouldn't…what's that term? 'Push the cow'?"

"'Poke the bear.'"

"Right. That."

She scoffed, nudging him back. "What's the matter, Vakarian, scared of a little commitment?"

He just looked at her. "…scared that if we do it now, we'll be telling fate that we've done everything together that we need to. That you're wide open to be taken from me, just like last time."

Her teasing expression quickly faded to sympathy. She gently laid her hand on his scars, her sapphire eyes locked on his. "Fate doesn't decide anything for us. Not anymore."

"I don't know. It seemed like fate that everything aligned perfectly for me to find you that day. For you to come back to me on the Citadel and Omega and Menae."

"So we keep coming back…and stop letting go in the first place."

He nodded. "Then it's time for _me_ to give _you_ an order." He carefully drew her into his arms, not taking his eyes off hers for one second even as the pleading behind his words shone through. "Come back alive. This galaxy's awfully empty without you."

Before his plea could drive her to tears again right in the middle of the base, she jumped to kiss him. If any of the turians looking on thought this odd, neither of them cared, leaning into each other passionately and trying not to think that it was yet another "just in case this is the last time." They stayed wrapped in each other as long as they possibly could before the need to breathe got in the way.

Even as she hesitantly, achingly slowly pulled away, Terra kept her eyes on her love. "I love you, Garrus. Always. I'm never leaving you again."

He watched her as her hand slipped away from his and she turned solemnly to cross the barricade. As she left the room, he sighed. "…never."

When Terra had left the room, she turned on her omni-tool and, against her better judgment, sent a message. She didn't get the chance to worry about repercussions when she had to take up position to defend the barricade. By the time she was done, her focus was back on crossing the base to check on her squad. She found Liara in the makeshift medical bay on the other side of the door.

Liara gave her little greeting. She was already solemn enough looking over the wounded without the hard truth that crashed in on her now: "…this is it, isn't it?"

Terra nodded. "Yeah."

"I don't know what to say." She scoffed, shaking her head. "I just know I'll have a clever line five minutes from now."

Terra gently laid her hand on the asari's arm, drawing her to face her. "Liara…you've been one of my closest friends. Through all of this. It's meant a lot to me. I hope you know how much I care about you."

Liara smiled. "I do. And, actually…I wanted to give you something. A gift. It'll only take a moment. If you want it."

"Of course."

"Then close your eyes."

Terra went along with it. When she felt Liara touch her mind for the first time in nearly three years, she opened her eyes to see her surroundings changed. Suddenly, she and Liara were standing in a field. Terra nearly welled with emotion at the thought it was one of the fields she had whiled away so many hours in on Mindoir, but it couldn't be because the grasses were asari-native and the flowers were demaels. Liara must have formed the scene from combining their memories or some such. Terra turned to find Liara right at her side, clinging to her arm and watching the horizon. So Terra wordlessly clung back and did the same, knowing this was one scene she could never capture and holding onto it while she could. When it was over, she looked up at Liara in wonder.

The look in Liara's eyes seemed to say that Terra was the one who had given the gift. "…thank you, Terra. For everything." Then she stood firm. "Now let's do what needs to be done."

Terra moved on to the next section of the base still holding onto the memory of Liara's "gift." The only thing that seemed to push it from the forefront of her mind was when she stepped out onto the next rise and saw Wrex there, speaking to the squads of krogan in wait below.

"…when the rachni laid waste to the galaxy," Wrex was saying, "one word drove them back into the abyss. One word brought death to an enemy none dared face! That word was KROGAN! And today, the krogan rise again! Today, we stand with the galaxy as allies in victory! Today, _we win our future_!"

Terra smiled, stepping up beside him. "Yes. You will."

Wrex smirked as he looked at her. "You really did it. You united a galaxy. That's a victory right there."

"Yeah, well, you'll forgive me if I don't settle for the one."

"Ha. Right. Oh, and Bakara sends her regards. To you and your sister. She's already pregnant. There are _some_ perks to being in charge. Though she keeps insisting we name the first one 'Mordin.'"

Terra struggled not to laugh. "Can't wait to see."

"You'll be the first invite. Anyway, we're ready. Just say the word."

"Thanks, Wrex. I can always count on you." Patting her old friend on the hump, she turned to go. Just as she was about to cross the rise, though, she caught sight of Javik off to the side. Curious, she stepped over. "Enjoying the view?"

Javik turned to face her. "I have been listening to the krogan speak to his men. In our cycle, the races never came together. There was no rallying cry. …I envy you. You can claim what my people never could: there will be a tomorrow."

Terra shrugged. "Only if we win today."

"No one else has ever made it this far."

"You did. For all the Reapers' might, there's still one last Prothean out there to stand with us now. That means something, Javik. Don't forget that."

"I will not. I will fulfill my mission. But you are now the avatar of this cycle. The exemplar of victory. Not just for humanity or Protheans or turians. For all life. Every soul that has ever existed is watching this moment."

She sighed. "No pressure when you put it that way…"

"Do not waver. Victory is never won without difficult choices."

"I know. I've had to make a lot of them."

"But I know that you will see this through. No matter the cost." As he said it, he held his hand out.

Terra took a brief second to appreciate the irony that he was now offering the gesture he had refused from her the day they met. Then she accepted it. "You know, you've never actually mentioned what you plan to do after this is over."

He stepped back. "Your asari still has questions for me. But seeing the past again in the Echo Shard…the faces of my men…I will go to the Cronian Nebula and find their graves. I will put their ghosts to rest. …then I will join them."

When she realized what he was saying, she made it clear she didn't like it. "Javik, you don't have to—"

"It is as it should be, commander. The last voice of the Protheans has spoken."

"It doesn't _have_ to be that way, though. We can find a place for you here. Garrus found one for me."

He simply looked at her. "I will consider. In the meantime…" He reached into his pocket, taking out the aforementioned Shard. "Take it. Add to it. Let the progeny of this cycle study it. They will know that this was the day the Reapers were defeated…and that Terra Shepard was their conqueror."

Terra gave him an uncertain smile before placing the Shard carefully in her pack by her sketchbook and heading up the rise. The last room was the planning center, where Anderson and the other admirals were putting together their assault strategy. Terra came in to find EDI supervising the plan, likely running the numbers on all the scenarios they concocted.

When the AI noticed her, she turned to immediately say "Shepard, I have a question."

Terra gave EDI a questioning look. "What kind of question?"

"In this battle, the Reapers will have no reason not to use their full capabilities to destroy us. Their forces are in entrenched positions. They have superior firepower and outnumber our troops. My question is…what makes you think we can reach the Citadel at all?"

"Because they underestimate us. They follow that same line of reasoning you just took, know they have control of the one thing we need to beat them, and think they have us under control before we even march in. They don't. It's just a matter of showing them that."

"But if they have spies or other intelligence, we will lose any element of surprise. Under such conditions, we will likely lose."

Terra saw the real reason for the question now. "Wait…EDI…are you _afraid_?"

EDI just looked at her. "The probability of success is greater than any other plan to date."

"That's not what I asked. _Are you afraid_?"

"I do not understand the purpose of the question."

"Don't give me that, EDI. You've spent this entire war getting in touch with your organic side and proving yourself a part of the crew—and the love of Joker's life, if I'm not mistaken. I know you. I'm here for you. Don't hold back now."

EDI hesitated. That alone was answer enough. Still, she voiced her thoughts: "I am clear on what we must do. The Reapers have destroyed thousands of civilizations. …but they have never destroyed ours. Nor will they."

Terra smiled. "Now that's more like it."

EDI smirked in response. Only to turn somber again as she came to another thought that had to be voiced. "Terra, there is something you should know. The Illusive Man ordered my creation and Jeff was the one who allowed me to think for myself…but it is because of you that I feel alive, that I know who I am. Thank you."

Terra didn't have the words for this. She merely thanked EDI in turn and, with a brief exchange of nods, turned to the other side of the room. The last member of her squad stood watch over the battlefield, overseeing her people's coordination (both quarian and geth) on her omni-tool. Terra quickly stepped over to take her side. "Good to see you making use of that admiralty."

Tali smirked before turning off her omni-tool and devoting her attention to her best friend. "Almost time for the final push. Are you OK?"

"Funny, I thought _I'd_ be asking _you_ that."

"Terra, I backed you when I was just a kid on her Pilgrimage. I backed you when the _Normandy_ was a Cerberus ship. What kind of friend would I be if I didn't back you now? And you didn't answer my question. _Are you OK_?"

Terra sighed. It figured that Tali would see through her just as easily as she'd seen through EDI. Maybe she'd gotten _too_ close to the quarian. …or maybe that was just how they were, why they were so close to begin with. "You remember how you felt when you landed on Rannoch? Now try to imagine that it's not a story passed down by your people and you were there just a few months ago. …imagine what it would be like to see all that life and light and history torn down and left to burn."

Tali nodded. "Earth _and_ Palaven." She sighed. "I'm so sorry, Terra. We'll fix this. And whatever happens…I'm honored to have served with you…captain."

Terra smiled. Then she seized the moment to forget all the restrictions and risks involved and hugged her best friend. "The honor was all mine…Tali'Zorah vas Normandy."

Tali smiled as she hugged her back. "You know, the admirals hung that ship name on me like a badge of shame. Until the _Normandy_ helped us reclaim our home-world." She leaned back from the embrace, ready and determined. "It's time I returned the favor."

Terra sighed. "It _is_ time. Are you ready?"

"As I'll ever be. I'm right behind you. We all are."

Terra held onto that assurance more than any other now. It was all she needed to know. "Then it's time to show the Reapers what we can do."


	85. The Final Assault

Chapter 85: The Final Assault

The enemy relentless  
Yet they cannot stop us  
Resistance from all skies  
Blood united  
Stars brighter than ever before  
The howls diminish as the fires fall  
And so begins their end

The plan was simple. Terra would lead her chosen squad down the no-man's-land between them and the beam that led up to the Citadel. There was a Reaper Destroyer in their way, but Terra's main job was to clear the path for a series of Thanix-cannon-toting tanks to drive up and fire their payloads right down the thing's throat. If that didn't do the job, nothing would. Then it would just be a matter of running for it, opening the station's arms, calling in the Crucible, and hitting the kill-switch on the entire Reaper fleet. It was so simple, in fact, that Terra already didn't trust it.

But this was it. This was the final assault. There was no going back now. They were in it to win it once and for all and that was all there was to it. The only question it came down to was the answer to Anderson's advice.

"Pick your team well."

…she already had.

All seven of her current squad-mates joined her in the planning room after the rest of the troops had cleared out to start mobilizing. They were all watching her, expecting one of her poetic preludes to stoke the fires of battle for them all. She almost laughed to herself when she realized this particular situation called for something exactly like that but entirely different.

So she stepped out from behind the planning table and told them what they all needed to hear: "This war has been a nightmare for us all. It's taken our homes, cut us off from loved ones, brought us suffering. But for all the pain and death that's been plaguing our lives, more good has come of it. Because it's also brought us together. As crewmen. As friends. …as a family."

None of them said anything. Though the looks on their faces said everything for them. She was right, after all. They had all found a place they belonged on the _Normandy_. And a team forged in fire was a family like none other.

"Everyone is counting on us. Every soldier looking to see home again. Every civilian waiting while we fight." As she walked past, her hand brushed longingly against Garrus'. "…every widow…and orphan." Noticing how he just barely returned the gesture, she took the front by the window overlooking the no-man's-land they were about to brave. "They're trusting us…depending on us to win them a future free of the threat of extinction."

Still no words were said. Though, again, it was clear from the sorrow behind Liara's gaze and the uncertainty in EDI's that the pressure in that statement wasn't lost on them, that the thought of failure was already too much.

Terra smirked as she turned to them, knowing this before she even saw it. "But we _can't_ lose. Not as long as we're not in this alone. And as you may have noticed, we're not. Letting this war bring us together will be the Reapers' undoing. They can never understand this bond between us. Because it's stronger than they are, something they can never stand against."

Tali spoke for them all when she answered this proclamation by taking Terra's hand in a gesture of friendship that clearly even quarians were familiar with.

Terra nodded to let Tali know that she appreciated the support. "…so we're going to finish this the way we started it." Then she looked to them all and made her intentions clear: "Together." It took a moment for her meaning to sink in. She saw the stunned way they all watched her when it did. "It's all of us or nothing. I can't imagine facing the last stand without every last one of you right behind me. We're strongest that way. We've proved it." Slowly removing her hand from Tali's, she stepped back as if to give her team the floor. "So what do you say?"

For a moment, they merely exchanged glances. This was the defining moment of the entire war and there was no room for missteps. But Terra was right. She believed in them and what they were. And since they all knew better than to argue with their commander, especially at a time like this, well…

Ashley was the one who spoke up, smirking delightedly as she readied her rifle. "I say the robo-squids won't even know what hit them."

"Got that right," James smirked back as he reached for his own gun, "Just point us at them."

"I do desire to be present when the Reapers at last feel our vengeance," Javik almost smirked.

"It's what it's all been leading to," Liara nodded, "Since before we even met."

"And the odds are in our favor this way," EDI added.

Garrus simply shook his head. "Like you were ever going down there without me."

Tali smiled. "Or me."

Terra beamed to see them all agreeing.

"We're right behind you, Shepard," Ashley said plainly.

So Terra drew her own rifle and readied it. "Then let's end this."

So when their troops finally mobilized, Terra Shepard jumped down from the FOB into the no-man's-land, her entire squad right behind her, and started making her way towards the beam.

Terra kept her COMM open, as she'd promised Violet she would. It was mostly chatter from the other units about their movements and their chances, but she did occasionally hear some hopeful violin music cut through. She had her suspicions that EDI was boosting the signal, since it was uninterrupted even by the intermittent chatter, but she set the matter aside and focused on taking the music as the morale boost it was meant to be, hoping anyone else who might be hearing it would do the same.

At first, the eight of them made their way quietly through the streets as the tanks started moving. All they had to do was clear the way. That was more or less their specialty, so except for the overhanging sense of "this is it," they weren't in the least worried. Terra just led them along the edges of the road, keeping an eye out for danger and looking forward to seeing the Thanix cannons tear through that Reaper like the _Normandy_'s had torn through the Collector ship. When the time finally came that they stumbled across a waiting contingent of Cannibals right in the tanks' path, Terra signaled her team to get ready.

Then the chaos began. It started when Liara noticed that most of the Cannibals were clustered together and set off a Singularity. As soon as she had sufficiently cooled down, she warped it, causing a detonation that sent them all flying. The few remaining scrambled, two of them walking right into a proximity mine Garrus had been quick to lay down and the rest falling to combined fire from Terra and James. They raced through the now open area to the next sector, finding another contingent of Reaper soldiers waiting to be taken apart by incinerating attacks from Ashley and EDI. Tali kept Chatika at the ready, the drone flitting between oncoming Marauders to distract them long enough for Garrus to take out their shields and expose them for Javik's devastating biotic assaults and rifle fire. Then, of course, a Harvester came down and opened fire on one of the tanks, stopping it in its tracks until Terra was able to coordinate the squad's fire to disable both the "worm-neck" and the Banshee that followed. It was chaotic, yes, but they thrived in it all the same.

The further they went, the more the path led them through storefronts and apartment buildings that had been all but torn down by the Reapers' occupation. Terra grew more and more incensed with each one (as were James and Ashley and Garrus, she noted peripherally), outraged and devastated that the homes and livelihoods of her entire civilization had been utterly trampled and turned into a battleground. Earth could bounce back, but they had to win this first. So Terra fought even harder, plowing through the Marauders and Cannibals barring their path and down an alleyway.

She slowed down when she thought she felt things shaking. Suspicions confirmed when two Brutes charged through the wall ahead right into where she would've been standing had she not stopped. She started yelling for the squad to fall back and unload on the things, but it was more out of panic than necessity since that was basically what they all instinctually did. Terra would usually counter that panic with some outlandish maneuver like tackling one of the Brutes to make it charge into the other one, but it was too tight-quarters for that (and also she was just slightly too panicked to consider something so insane plausibly successful considering how close a call that entrance had been), so she stuck to the simple yet typically effective solution of staying out of reach and shooting them a lot. Then, when the Brutes were worn down enough for a kill shot, called out to Liara and Ashley.

So Liara warped the armor on the first one and Ashley tossed an inferno grenade between the two. Only the first one died outright, but James quickly rectified that by firing a heavy round that finished off the second. Just like that, they were clear. All of them moved a bit faster heading through the Brutes' entryway to continue onwards.

Terra only allowed herself to revel in the unstoppable euphoria of fighting her way through this madness with her entire team behind her and the knowledge of how right it was. She didn't let herself get complacent or distracted, not now they were so close and couldn't afford to. But she hit the opposite extreme when they approached the final stretch, where the tanks would be stopping to take aim. Things had been too easy so far (obviously this would be the subjective "easy" since it had hardly been the most simple mission against the Reaper forces) and she didn't trust it. Due to this, she was hardly surprised when the COMM chatter was overwhelmed with their troops in the towers opening fire only to discover too late that the tanks had lost their drivers on arrival and all they'd done was given away their position. When the chatter went silent, Terra sullenly forced herself not to think about how many of them were likely vaporized within those ten seconds and simply accept that it was up to her and her squad to finish this now.

EDI took point, racing over to interface with the targeting computers on the tanks while the others manned the perimeter. She was able to reboot the system, though they now had to wait for this process to complete before EDI could even program in the targeting parameters and ready the missiles to fire. In that time, they were right in the middle of four different approaches any oncoming Reaper forces could take and right in plain view of the Destroyer. Though the Destroyer was out of range to fire on them directly and the remains of the street had plenty of cover for them, they all knew this was going to be possible their toughest fight yet. Until the Reaper troops actually started pouring in, they were even ready for it.

It was simple enough at first, just a few contingents of Marauders and Cannibals trying to push them out of position only for them to hold firm. Then their forces on the other side of the field took too many losses to hold their own position and cost them valuable defenses, exposing them to an all-out siege from the left flank. Terra, Garrus, and Ashley immediately took position to start sniping over the ridge (though the enemy unfortunately was the side with the high ground), EDI, Javik, Liara, Tali, and James all readying to cover them from any Husks that got past their line of fire. It was intense and hard-won, but still they held.

They held long enough for EDI to triumphantly inform Terra that "Missiles are locked and ready to fire."

Terra instantly whirled around to slam the "fire" button and send the missiles racing towards the Reaper.

At the last second, both missiles veered off-course to explode into each other behind the intended target, leaving the Destroy unscathed.

"What just happened?!" Terra demanded from EDI, too upset to catch the terror and fury and devastation in her voice.

"The beam the Destroyer is guarding is causing some sort of interference," EDI explained, "Targeting is unable to compensate."

"You mean we're down to two missiles," Ashley practically started panicking, "we haven't even scratched it, and we can't hit it anyway?!"

"The first two, yes. The third… We can lessen the interference to a degree automatic targeting can withstand." Anyone who didn't know EDI might've missed the hesitation between that statement and the next, split second it was, but they all saw it. "We have to draw the Destroyer away from the beam."

Terra barely needed to glance at the limited maneuverability of this area afforded to such a large monstrosity to see why EDI had hesitated to share the plan. "…and closer to us."

As if that wasn't enough to silence them all with cold dread, EDI's systems quickly informed them of yet another issue: "Scans indicate multiple Reaper units en route to our position."

Tali was practically shaking even as she readied her shotgun. "Keelah, how can there be _more_ of them?!"

Outwardly, Terra was quick to tell everyone that they could do this as long as they stuck together and stayed calm. Inside, however, she was just as afraid as Tali and struggling just as hard as her quarian companion not to be.

Those first waves were nothing. This standoff was the fight of their lives.

Having all of her squad-mates behind her was a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, Terra had all the backup she could ever want and only the best of it, rendering the task of holding position against the Reapers' onslaught as natural as any other mission even if sheer numbers and force made it more daunting than usual. On the other hand, now that they truly did have the Destroyer's attention, it was less than a minute before it had gotten close enough to fire on them itself, forcing Terra to struggle to find enough cover to support all eight of them (by all the spirits, she was _not_ losing another friend today). That said, the Destroyer's fire was easily turned against its own Brutes and Banshees, which just as quickly fell to its weapon. Though even this wasn't advantage enough to heighten their chances.

It was as if every Reaper soldier they took out was replaced by two more of its like. Husks were nothing against Liara's well-practiced crowd control tactics, but swarms of small enemies could be even more deadly than a pair of big ones if she tired. Cannibals, even when armored, fell all too easily to James and Ashley's arsenal, but the ones that employed patience in their strategy would only grow stronger for every fallen ally. Marauders were everything Garrus and Tali were meant to fight and were no match for a turian vengeful for his harvested people and the quarian who played to his strengths, but they were cunning enough to find flaws in the squad's defenses just open for exploitation. Brutes and Banshees were the greatest threat (all the Ravagers seemed to have been spent in the area control and there was no room for another Harvester with the Destroyer drawing closer) and yet were easily worn down and exterminated by Javik and EDI's specialized biotic and tech attacks, but just one flanking them while another bared down on them could cost them valuable ground if not their lives.

Terra saw all of this. She also lost her strategy entirely when she found them completely surrounded, too many sides for her to organize at once. Even though she trusted her team to stand their ground, she knew it could only be a matter of seconds before one of them took a shot that left the rest of them exposed. That was something every soldier knew about battle: it only takes two seconds and one bullet to cost your entire army their victory. She couldn't let things stack up that way. Not this time. _Not ever._

So she could safely say later on that it was out of tactical urgency and not desperation that she, the exact _second_ that EDI informed her the Destroyer was in range, raced out of the squad's gradually narrowing perimeter and under the Reaper's line of fire, ignoring her team's startled protests, to jump for the tank and slam her hand on the targeting controls.

Two Thanix missiles fired right as the Destroyer took aim on her. Both struck right in its waiting firing chamber with enough force to stagger it. Had it had the capacity, it would be bleeding.

"NOW!" Terra ordered into her COMM to every unit in range, only distantly noting that the Reaper troops her squad was covering her from were either dispersing or failing to be met with reinforcements, "Hit it with everything you've got!"

She then watched in sweet, cathartic, vindicating triumph as the Destroyer stumbled under fire from all sides until finally it fell.

EDI, once they were clear, quickly performed a scan to confirm it was offline. "Destroyer terminated."

Terra smiled. "Nice work, EDI." After she was certain they had a moment to catch their breath, she stowed her gun and leaned back on the tank to do so.

Even as she was asking after everyone else to make sure no one sustained any injuries, Garrus saw the way his mate was shivering. He quickly and quietly took her side, stowing his own gun to take her hand. "We did it. We're almost through this."

She smirked, leaning on him instead. "We are."

Just as they were finished regrouping, Anderson arrived with the unit he was overseeing. Ostensibly, he was there to pick them up for the final charge to the beam. Predictably, however, he was also the bearer of bad news: "Several Sovereign-class Reapers, including Harbinger, just broke off from the battle with the fleets. They're headed here."

Terra didn't even bother hiding how this news shook her. "Harbinger?" The first and worst of them all. The one behind the Collectors and Aratoht. The one she didn't want to face until she was absolutely certain she could tear it apart. If it was coming here… "We have to move fast."

That was always the plan, but they all agreed with the newly heightened urgency. Without a word of argument or discussion or even planning, they piled into the rovers and got moving.

After she'd been sitting down for a few seconds and had a chance to calm down, Terra took a moment to look around. Her entire squad was still there with her, along with Anderson. Exactly what she'd wanted and needed to see as she approached the final assault. They all knew it wouldn't be easy, they all knew this could be the end, and they were all there with her anyway. It meant a lot to know she had friends she could count on. It meant even more to know that, here in the face of absolute annihilation, they were all as brave and crazy as she was to stand and fight something of this magnitude. Though she didn't want to accept the thought, she felt she had to say something to that effect now in case it was the last chance she got. So when they stood to prepare to move out again, she looked between all seven of them and said it plain: "I can't imagine doing this with anyone else. Or without any of you. …we're family."

Garrus smiled. "We are. And this fight was always ours to finish."

"It seems strange to be so close," Liara commented, "For all this to be so nearly over."

"But it is," Tali agreed, "We've made it. And it's time to end it."

"Well, I hope you're all ready," Anderson added, "Because this is it."

No sooner had he said it than the rover stopped. They had been expecting that, obviously, but this stop was sharp and jarring, practically throwing them off their feet. They knew something was wrong immediately, quickly piling out of the rover to see what was going on.

And then all fighting not to vocalize their alarm when Harbinger itself touched down behind the beam, leering down at them all as it prepared to fire again.

"MOVE!" Anderson ordered, prompting every unit on the field to start racing for the beam.

Terra didn't give herself a chance to hesitate or panic or freeze. She kicked her feet into overcharge and set to running. It was a frantic, disjointed run, interrupted every three seconds by another blast from Harbinger's weapon. Her reflexes were sharp enough (and her instincts and sheer luck intact enough) that she managed to avoid taking any of the blasts head-on. Many of the troops making the run with her weren't so lucky, but she didn't give herself a chance to notice, worried it might slow her down. She just kept running at full speed, ducking under explosions on all sides. Until one shot hit a tank right in front of her and sent it tumbling back towards her. It was only as she reacted with sharp quickness and clarity, diving straight under it at the cost of her momentum, that she suddenly realized what she had been doing wrong.

She was charged not just on adrenaline but on cybernetic enhancements. There was no way her squad could keep up with her.

Fighting the urge to panic, she turned to check on them. Naturally, they were right behind her. This time, that was exactly the problem. The tank she had so easily dodged came crashing down right in the middle of them, forcing them all to stop dead in their tracks and dive out of the way. The crash itself they all avoided. The resulting fire and shrapnel, not so much.

Terra stopped thinking straight when she saw them all go down. Using whatever cover she could find, she doubled back for them, dragging all of them behind the wreckage of the tank. "_Normandy_, do you copy?!" she called into her COMM as soon as they were all out of Harbinger's line of fire, "I need an evac! _Right now_!"

"No!" James quickly debated, "We can still f—!" He didn't even finish the sentence before an ill-conceived attempt to get back on his feet sent a surge of pain coursing through his bleeding gut and sent him back on the ground.

Ashley, facing the exact same struggle between conviction and injury, quickly laid her hand on his arm. "Medi-gel's not gonna be enough for this one, Vega. Just be glad we made it this far."

Before any of the others could attempt to debate the matter further, the _Normandy_ arrived, opening the shuttle bay ramp to allow the squad back aboard. The ship had landed just behind the area currently under by Harbinger and the stealth systems and Reaper IFF were both active, so they had time. Not much time, but enough.

Terra, not willing to waste what little opportunity they had, quickly helped them all back to the ship. Liara and Tali were still strong enough to support some of their more injured teammates, like James and Ashley, and EDI was too damaged for combat but still functioning enough to similarly help her crewmates aboard. Though Terra was still entirely unscathed, she clung only to Garrus. Likewise, he clung only to her, not even noticing the pain of his injuries as they shed his warm blue blood.

Not until she suddenly let go of him and pushed him into Tali's arms. "Take him."

He immediately turned to reach for her. "No! Terra!"

"You've gotta get out of here!" Terra argued.

"And you've gotta be kidding me! I'm not leaving you behind!"

Terra understood his reasons better than anyone. But if he couldn't stand on his own two feet, he couldn't fight at her side at a time like this, and she refused to _ever_ risk his life. She needed him to _live_, no matter the cost. She forced herself to meet his eyes again, not bothering to hide the pain inside hers and unable to deny the sorrow and rage burning within his. "…Garrus…_please_…"

But he held firm, despite how battered and bloodied he was. "…no, Terra. We're in this to the end."

Despite all the fear and doubt that had plagued her today and throughout this entire war, this was the hardest thing she'd had to do since the week of Aratoht. If she was being honest, she wanted to just go with them and let someone else be the hero for once, but she couldn't risk it—too much was riding on this for her to turn her back on it. Her people needed her and, turian that she was at heart, that duty came first. Even if her heart demanded otherwise. Still, she couldn't submit to that pull without leaving him with _something_, some hope to cling to until her return…or demise. So she looked at the man she loved and spoke her heart plainly: "…no matter what happens here…" She stepped up to him, placing her hand against his scars and never for a second taking her eyes away from his. "…you know I love you. And I always will."

He tried not to hear the finality in her words, focused on the words themselves. He had known this to the depths of his soul for years, but how she said it now… "…Terra…I…" He sighed, knowing there was nothing he could do now but give her the truth and hope it was enough: "…I love you, too."

He laid his hand on hers as he said it, not willing to let go for anything. She laid her head on his, wishing it were that simple. It was only when she heard Harbinger roaring that she remembered they had less than a minute before it realized their ship was a target and opened fire. She couldn't let that happen. She had to stop this—all of it—_now_.

So she reluctantly pried herself from her love's grasp. Then she took off her pack, tossing it into the cargo bay with them, and shouted at them all to "_GO_!"

There was no debate, even when Liara gingerly took the discarded pack into her arms. They all watched her run off without another word, perhaps all hoping she'd yet turn back, before halfheartedly falling back to the med bay so the cargo bay doors could close behind them and the ship could again take off.

Terra returned to sprinting for the beam, her focus not on Harbinger's weapon returning to full power but on the _Normandy_ as it flew away. Fighting her sadness to put all her strength in her feet, she ran. …though she could not deny her mind was filled only with thoughts of her turian.

…_when you need me, I will be there…_

Garrus didn't have the strength to fight Tali off as she dragged him to the medical bay. Especially not after Liara handed Terra's pack to him as if it belonged to him. It was only after he had it in his hands that it struck him she had left it behind. That wasn't right. That meant she feared it might be damaged, which meant she doubted her own survival. She wouldn't do that. She'd _promised_ him… Clutching Terra's pack and almost violently denying Chakwas' suggestion to put it aside, he tried not to think about how he had left her behind. Tried and failed.

…_when you are hurting, I will protect you…_

Terra weaved for the last stretch, dodging Reaper fie as best she could even as everyone around her who drew too close to their destination went down. She didn't let the odds get to her. Not now. Not when she was _so close_. What did get to her was how every beat of her heart seemed to be telling her either _Don't stop_, _Turn back_, or _Survive!_ She didn't listen anyway. She just kept running.

…_when you are lost, I will find you…_

Violet was still playing when they all laid down for treatment. She stopped when EDI came into the AI core and showed the former prodigy that everyone but her sister was back. Violet silently took Garrus' side and saw what he had. When the shock and blood loss caught up with him enough to make him lose consciousness, he was holding her hand tightly, as if to reassure her that Terra was coming back…or to take assurance from her.

…_whatever you face, I will also…_

Terra felt her pace pick up as she drew ever nearer to the beam. She could make it. She had to. She ran with every last bit of strength she had, her vision narrowing…until she didn't see where the next shot was coming. One wrong step and she was thrown off her feet.

…_only duty shall take me from your side…_

The beam was in sight. She couldn't stop now. She couldn't let this stop her! Struggling with every fiber of her being, Terra stumbled back to her feet…right as Harbinger's beam came down around her.

…_and let nothing but death part us._


	86. Crucible

OK, full disclosure here: I completely cheated with the ending. It's honestly not because I have a problem with the actual ending so much as that none of the choices presented fit the story I'm trying to tell here. Just bear with me. Thanks.

Chapter 86: Crucible

I stand at the edge  
Beneath the weight of victory and defeat combined  
Beneath the blood and sacrifice that brought me here  
I approach the fall, broken and desperate  
Before me lies the answer  
If only I might accept it  
Still I stand at the edge

She roused slowly, vision and hearing flickering in and out. When she saw Harbinger flying off as if its work was done and heard the Alliance officers saying their entire force was decimated before anyone could make the beam, she knew she had to act _now_. Her armor was in tatters, though that merely gave her the push she needed to get moving since it exposed her ring and necklace. Then again, it was only when she tried to get moving that she realized _she_ was in tatters as well. Her head spun, her vision blurred with red, sounds muffled, and every movement she made was a weakened struggle that sent the pain and blood pouring out.

But she had to keep moving. So she took a discarded pistol in her hand and started limping towards the beam.

Every step was difficult, every breath shuddering. She was only five meters from the beam, but she was so slowly limping that direction that she felt it would take an hour to reach it or she was in a nightmare where the halls would lengthen and keep her from ever moving at all. It was only when three Husks came out of nowhere and charged at her that she was truly moving, raising the pistol to open fire. Even like this, her aim was true, three well-placed headshots downing her would-be attackers. Fighting the thought of if she could take even one hit from the things in her current state, she forged on ahead. She made it all of two steps before she stumbled and fell to her knees. She refused to give in, pulling herself back up, but it felt even harder to keep moving now. It didn't help when a Marauder jumped out from behind the debris to take a shot at her, but she still held out and struck back even harder. The second her path was clear, she pulled herself through and into the beam…

…

_"Shepard!"_

Terra woke up coughing up dust. As she struggled to pull herself to her feet one last time, she took account of her senses. Ears were tuned to her COMM, which was apparently still on. Nose was picking up nothing but dust and blood. Eyes…eyes were still totally red.

No. Wait. She looked around as she got up. Her eyes were fine. It was just that she was in a narrow corridor lit entirely in red…and filled to the brim with the eviscerated remains of human corpses. That shocked her upright, desperate to get out of this room.

_"Shepard, can you hear me?"_

She recognized the voice now. "Anderson? Is that you?"

_"It's me. Good to hear you made it through."_

"You're up here, too?" she asked as she leaned against a wall (careful to reach _over_ the piles of bones and entrails) to regain her balance.

_"Yeah, but I don't think we came out in the same place. Where are you?"_

"Keeper tunnel…filled with bodies."

_"Same here. Reminds me of your description of the Collector base. …do you think they're building a Reaper in here?"_

Maybe it was the injuries, but she felt her insides clench in revulsion at the thought. "Makes sense. Round them up on Earth, send them up here to be processed."

_"Abominations."_

Took the word right out of her mouth. She started limping forward, following Anderson's heading as best she could to meet him on the other end.

It should be noted that Terra had seen most of the Citadel. Garrus had gotten to know the whole station very well over his time working there and had made a point of showing her as much as he could. What they hadn't seen together had likely then been explored during their off-limits dates and keeper walkway excursions. So it was especially unsettling to find that this was no part of the Citadel Terra had ever set foot on before. As she made her way to the console Anderson believed might open the Ward arms, she already knew everything had gone horribly wrong. She just didn't know how wrong until Anderson's signal cut out.

She also didn't know exactly what was wrong until she actually reached him and immediately felt every muscle in her body lock.

"I warned you, Shepard," a voice she knew all too well sneered at her, "Control is the means to survival. Control of the Reapers…and of you, if necessary."

Some small part of her immediately started screaming at the indignity that, now she was finally meeting the Illusive Man face-to-face, she wasn't in a position to actually show him what she thought of him.

Anderson was in the same boat, apparently, since he didn't even move to sneer right back at him that "They're controlling _you_."

The Illusive Man shook his head. "I don't think so, Admiral."

If that was really all he had to say for himself, though, then Terra knew he was doubting, somewhere deep down. She had never trusted him, but maybe he was stubborn enough to break free with the right push like Saren did. Seeing as how it might just be her only chance, she set to it. "Controlling me is a lot different than controlling a Reaper."

"Have a little faith. When humanity discovered the mass relays, there were some who thought they should be destroyed. They were scared of what we would find, terrified of what we might let in. Yet since that discovery, we've advanced more than the past 10,000 years combined. The Reapers can do so again, but…"

Terra was already in pain from her injuries, so her vision nearly blacked out when she felt a pressure on her skull. When it subsided, even though she was certain she hadn't moved, her gun was raised…at Anderson. Was this what indoctrination was like? If so, she felt even sorrier for Saren and Benezia but also even more desperate to end this confrontation fast.

"…only if we harness their ability to control."

Terra had to agree with Anderson's assertion that it was kill or be killed in this situation and the Illusive Man's plan was doomed to fail. Even if it was possible, she could even stand here for a week debating the morality of it, of harnessing the indoctrination—and solely the indoctrination, out of all the other Reapers' capabilities!—as if it was just a tool for peacekeeping and not an easily-abused means of enslaving anyone unsuspecting enough to fall prey to it. After the raid, after what her sister had gone through, she refused to let anything like that exist in her beloved galaxy _ever again_. "You're playing with power you don't understand and shouldn't be able to use."

"Don't be short-sighted," the Illusive Man waved her off, "If we can use it, why shouldn't we?"

"Because we're not ready." _And I'm not convinced any living creature ever would be._ "And because destroying the Reapers will end this now, but trying to control them and _failing_—"

"But I _can_!"

"Then do it. Turn the Crucible on right now and show us!"

"I…I will!" And yet, even as he said so, he stood there, unmoving, battling some inner turmoil.

Terra recognized that from Saren and Benezia as well. "You can't do it, can you? They won't let you."

The Illusive Man flinched back, glaring at her fiercely. "No! NO! I'm in control! No one is telling me what to do!"

"Listen to yourself," Anderson agreed with his protégé, "You're indoctrinated."

"_No_! The two of you, so self-righteous!" He stormed over to snatch the gun from Anderson's holster. "Look at the power they wield! Look at what they can do!"

Again, Terra was certain she didn't move. And yet the gun in her hands went off, shooting Anderson in the stomach. She inhaled sharply, too shocked to panic as she told herself he could recover if they got out of here _fast_. So she held firm and glared at the perpetrator. "I see what they've done _to you_. And if you cared _at all_ for humanity, you would be fighting this!"

"Don't talk to me about my motives!" the Illusive Man growled, "This power doesn't come easy! There are sacrifices you can't imagine—!"

"You've sacrificed too much! You used to stand for something you believed in. Now all you stand for is the very thing that will _destroy us_ if you keep letting it control you!"

"That's not true!"

"If it wasn't true, you would be opening the station right now! You sold out this entire galaxy for your own ambition because you refused to believe there was another way, and the Reapers exploited you for it! Show them they can't use you! Fight it!"

There was a tense moment of silence as the Illusive Man seemed to contemplate her words. Then, with a dejected sigh, he turned the gun in his hand… "I tried, Shepard." …and fired it on himself.

Terra knew he was dead when her nervous system began to respond again. It was still flaring with agony at her injuries and it was suddenly a lot harder to stand, but she pushed forward. She took Anderson's side as he fell to his knees, pressing a few buttons on the console before following suit.

Outside, the Wards slowly opened like the petals on a budding flower and the Crucible approached to attach to the station.

…they'd actually done it.

Terra allowed herself a sigh of relief and triumph as she sat down next to her mentor. It was finally happening.

Anderson smirked. "It's quite a view."

Terra tried to laugh only for her ribs to tighten. "Best seats in the house."

Anderson sighed. "Feels like years since I just…sat down."

"Yeah, well, I think you've earned a rest."

He nodded weakly but didn't really respond.

Terra quickly turned to Anderson as best she could. "Stay with me. We're almost through this." It was only as she said it that it really sunk in. This was it. They were about to finish it. Then they'd be free. She smiled as the true implication of this came over her. "I'm getting married."

Anderson smiled back, glancing at the ring on her finger. "I do want to be there."

"…actually, I was going to ask you to give me away."

He looked at her directly, astonished and flattered. "Really?"

She nodded sincerely.

To the best of her knowledge, she had never seen Anderson speechless before, but now… He finally smiled. "I'd be honored." He didn't hesitate, didn't question what it meant about their relationship. As if they had always known it wasn't as simple as people thought. He nodded at her ring with a sly glance. "You're lucky, Terra. You found the one you were meant to be with, someone who'll love you forever unconditionally." He almost laughed at the thought that struck him now. "I can't wait to see the kids."

Terra flinched. She had been trying not to think of that and get weighed down by what she knew they couldn't have. "We're still not compatible, biologically speaking. Might not be possible."

"Terra Shepard doesn't give up that easily. You've made a career of doing the impossible. The two of you can do anything together. You'll find a way."

She couldn't help but smile as she saw his point. It was true, after all. When she had met Garrus, no one had thought it possible for a human and a turian to be as close as they were, let alone so madly, deeply in love. They had beaten the odds every day of this war—practically every day since the _Normandy_ launched. So somehow… "…we will."

"Imagine how proud those kids will be that their mom was Commander Shepard."

"I don't know…"

"I do. You'll be a great mom. All you have to do is love them, be there for them."

_That's all my mom or Garrus' had to do,_ she silently agreed. She did love the idea of seeing what a human-turian baby would look like, of sharing something like that with the love of her life, of (to quote Thane) putting something wonderful into the galaxy after taking so many terrible things out of it. She wanted that more than she could say, she just hadn't given herself a chance to realize that until she was certain she could have it someday. Now she saw it as her next great challenge. "Someday."

He kept watching her. He didn't even glance at the view anymore as he watched his protégé finally take the chance to dream of the future she had earned. "You did good, child. I'm…proud of you."

She sighed gratefully. "Thank you, sir."

But he didn't respond.

"…Anderson?" She reached carefully for his hand. He still didn't respond…and she couldn't feel a pulse. As the truth fell over her, she started taking advantage of the fact she was alone to give in to the resulting urge to cry. It was only when another surge of pain came over her that she withdrew her hand from his arm to clutch her side, withdrawing it to find it covered in dark red blood. She couldn't stay here with the medi-gel dispensers in her suit trashed. She had to—

_"Commander," Hackett's voice rang through her COMM._

Her grief and fear subsided beneath the all-too-turian purpose of duty. "What…what do you need me to do?"

_"The Crucible's not firing. It's gotta be something on your end."_

She quickly started pulling herself to her feet to limp back towards the console, but she only made it halfway before her strength gave out and she fell to the floor.

_Hackett must have heard her responding cry of pain. "Commander?"_

"I…I can't…" She struggled to crawl to the console, reaching for it as soon as she was close enough. "…I'm not…not sure how to…to…" That was when the last of her strength failed her as she started to black out. She was distantly aware of Hackett still calling _"Shepard!"_ in her ear and of a light coming on overhead, but she lost consciousness before she could comprehend what either of these meant.

…

"**Wake up.**"

Terra roused to find herself in unfamiliar surroundings. The most unfamiliar she'd ever seen, possibly. Confused, she pulled herself together. Well, as best she could with her injuries. "What…where am I?"

Before her stood a hologram in the shape of a human child. …wait…no, it couldn't be the same one she saw die on Earth…could it? "**The Citadel. It is my home.**"

She gave the hologram a cautious glance. "And who are you?"

"**I am the Catalyst.**"

…honestly, that was the craziest thing she'd heard all day. "I thought the Citadel was the Catalyst."

"**Not quite. The Citadel is part of me.**"

"And how are you supposed to help the Crucible destroy the Reapers?"

"**I control the Reapers. They are my solution.**"

At that, Terra wanted to back out entirely. But, as usual, curiosity killed her caution. "Solution to what?"

"**Chaos. Organics create synthetics, synthetics kill their creators—**"

Terra nodded. "…and the Leviathans made Harbinger to stop that. Though I still don't understand how _wiping out all organic life in the galaxy_ solves anything."

"**No,**" the Catalyst asserted, "**We harvest advanced civilizations, leaving the younger ones alone. Just as we left your people alive the last time we were here.**"

Right. The Reapers didn't target organic races that were not yet space-faring. They had been avoiding the yahg throughout the entire war and, as it said, left the humans, turians, asari, etc. to live when they came for the Protheans. "But you killed the rest. You always kill the rest."

"**No. We preserve the old life in Reaper form.**"

"That's not preservation. That's cataloguing. You take what makes us living beings, but what makes us alive is destroyed. That's worse than death. And I can't—!" She stepped forward to put her foot down, but the broken ribs got in her way. Wincing for a moment, she settled for glaring at the intelligence that had been responsible for Javik's entire life and all the suffering of the past three years. "I can't let you go on anymore. This stops now."

The Catalyst looked at her as if it was thinking. "**You are the first organic to come here.**"

"Doesn't that prove that this cycle's different?"

"**What it proves is that my solution won't work anymore. The Crucible has presented new solutions, but I can't make them happen.**"

Terra could already see where this was going. "But I can." Because it always came down to her. She had hoped for a simple answer, some big red button she could press to just be done with it rather than putting the entire galaxy's fate in her hands. But no. It was never simple with her.

So the Catalyst presented her with her three options: destroy the Reapers…no, every synthetic currently active in the galaxy; control the Reapers by supplanting the Catalyst with her own consciousness as if the Illusive Man had been right all along; or activate an energy cascade that would combine the DNA of the organic galactic citizens with the equivalent functions in the synthetics. Definitely not as simple as she hoped.

She pondered her choices. Destroying the Reapers had been the obvious answer all along, but she couldn't do it if it meant killing _all_ synthetic life in the galaxy. She couldn't dishonor Legion that way. …she couldn't risk hurting EDI.

Controlling the Reapers? She immediately dismissed it. Even if it meant saving the galaxy, even if it meant the machines could repair all the damage they'd done, she couldn't stomach the idea of keeping these monsters alive, and the thought of making herself one of them made her sick. On the other hand, it also seemed like slavery. _Definitely not. Especially if the Illusive Man thought it was right._

Synthesis lay before her. It seemed like the ideal option. The Reapers would go away for good or become peacekeepers—they'd be free to choose. The citizens of the galaxy would be free, possibly even transcend their current states. All life being made of a single DNA structure could even give them the chance to coexist _perfectly_. _Imagine if I could survive and Garrus and I could…Garrus…no, I can't do this to him._ The thought of rewriting everything that the people she'd come to care for…it was too much. She couldn't do this. She couldn't make this choice if…if…wait…

_"Down to the ruthless calculus war," she had said to Garrus, "What if I have to make some impossible choice, lose everything just to win this?"_

_"I'm sure you'll just do what I usually try," Garrus had smirked back, "…find a way out of making it."_

…_find a way out…_ Terra looked again at her options. As her gaze fell on the control console, the machine that threatened to code her mind into an AI matrix, she realized something. …if this machine could make her the new matrix…it must be carrying the old one.

With newfound purpose, she began to stumble towards the control console. The intelligence projecting itself behind her seemed to take her purposeful limping as a decision, seemed to be preparing itself to be overwritten. But once she was close enough, she raised her gun.

And she fired on the console.

The Catalyst recoiled. Clearly, she was right. "What are you doing?"

She smiled as she checked the clip on the pistol. "Finding a way out." Then she unloaded it. Before the Catalyst could try to stop her, she sent shot after shot at the console. For good measure and to be sure this would have the desired effect, she leaned back to send a shot or two at the pod that would destroy the synthetics, a move that sent her injured body to the floor. Still, she persisted, sending the last shots she had at the control console until it erupted in a cloud of lightning that caused the walkway she was on to collapse.

And the Crucible fired.

The ships around the Crucible immediately saw it winding up to fire and started clearing out to avoid being accidentally crashed by the shockwave. The _Normandy_ was the last to leave. Joker was still insistent on staying no matter how much Traynor pressed him that they were out of time. It was only when Castis crossed the deck and hesitantly told him that he understood but they had to go that Joker finally consented and, clearly more upset than most had ever seen him, turned to go. He felt like he was abandoning the woman who had once died to save his life, like he should be returning the favor, like Garrus was going to kill him when he woke up. But they had to go. So they jumped out right as the Crucible let out a blast of shaky white light.

Earth was hit first. Right as the forces on the ground were beginning to be utterly overwhelmed, the shockwave rolled over the planet and the Reapers, in a shower of blue and red sparks, collapsed. While that battle was slowly coming to a close, the energy reached the Charon relay and began to spread out. The concentration of this force being transmitted was damaging to all the relays it came across, yet it was not enough to destroy them and it carried through the entire network. To Palaven, to Thessia, to Tuchanka. All across the galaxy, the Reapers shut down.

They'd won.

The _Normandy_'s late exit came back to bite them. They were barely at the relay before the shockwave hit them and threw them off-course. The crash wasn't so damaging that the ship was irreparable, but it was enough to ground them for a day or two on an uncharted garden world.

So the majority of the crew was busy getting the jump on repairs when Garrus came to. Violet was still at his side, giving him a look of sympathetic worry. He didn't waste any time. As best he could with the injuries that remained, he pulled himself up. "Where's Terra?"

Violet sighed. "She didn't come back. We couldn't get to her before they sounded the alarms and had us all jump out."

Garrus immediately started to get to his feet. "We're going back for her."

"Whoa!" Violet jumped to catch him when he inevitably lost his footing. "You're no good to her if you're not at your best. She worries about you enough already."

He smirked. "Yeah, she does."

At Violet's prodding, he stayed in bed until Chakwas was able to clear them all fit enough to help with the repairs. Garrus still felt like they were wasting precious time in which his mate needed him. But her ship needed him first, so he put his tech skills to use and counted the moments until he saw her again, clutching her pack all the while.

It was nearly 12 hours before EDI was finally able to announce that their communication systems were back online. Garrus immediately called Admiral Hackett for a report on what happened after the Crucible had fired.

_"It worked," the admiral explained, EDI sending his voice through the PA of every level of the ship, "The Reapers have all been disabled. The geth have confirmed it's permanent and even the indoctrination capabilities of their remains are offline. It's over."_

The entire ship rejoiced to hear this. They'd actually done it. None of them needed to fear losing everyone and everything they'd ever known to the genocidal synthetics' relentless harvest. _It was over_!

But Garrus stayed quiet. "What about Commander Shepard? Is she safe?"

Silence met him. That was disquieting enough that the rejoicing immediately stopped.

"…sir?"

_Hackett sighed. "There's been no word from her since the Crucible was activated. …she's MIA."_

Just like that, the rejoicing was gone completely. They couldn't have lost their commander, not again. Tali and Liara couldn't have lost their best friend, Ash couldn't have lost the one person who had believed in her…Solana and Violet couldn't lose their sister, and Castis couldn't lost the woman he considered a daughter.

But while everyone else took this as an obituary, Garrus took it as a challenge. He _wasn't_ losing his mate. Never again.


	87. No Stone Unturned

Chapter 87: No Stone Unturned

Yet at the edge  
When all is against me  
Still those I love follow  
And I am never alone

The _Normandy_ had become a source of escape for its crew. The more they worked on repairing it and getting back in the air, the less they could think about the difficult news they'd received. If everyone was too busy working to talk to each other, no one was overcome with the emotions associated with hearing that their commander was MIA. But they all knew that this was making it worse, that all those emotions were coming to boil beneath the surface, about to explode.

When opinions finally began to gingerly be spoken aloud, the crew seemed to be divided down the middle. Half of them believed Terra was dead or might as well be. The other half were convinced she was still alive and were pushing to go back and search for her.

One guess which camp Garrus fell in.

Garrus (along with Solana, Violet, and even Castis) was spearheading the latter half. Any of the crewmen from the former half could easily have dismissed this as lovesick hopefulness or turian stubbornness, but Garrus knew better. When he'd received word of Terra's death over Alchera, he had _known_. He had _felt_ that emptiness, _lived_ that loss. It wasn't happening again. He knew his mate (his bond-mate and soon-to-be wife, moreover). He knew she was out there. He was not resting until he'd found her.

The situation was only exacerbated when the ship was finally back to full functionality. They were immediately warming up to leave, but this allowed the crew to openly divide themselves about where they were going. Obviously, they were going back to Earth, since word around the COMMs was that the relays were temporarily too damaged to use, but the division was whether to dock at the Citadel to start looking for Terra or just head back to Earth and help their recovering forces. As soon as Garrus heard there was even a division, he put his foot down and said they were going back to the Citadel.

Liara had been attempting to play peacemaker between the two sides so far, so she reluctantly stepped up to talk Garrus down. "Listen, I know you're upset—"

"She's only MIA, not dead!" Garrus asserted, "She needs us now! I'm not leaving her there! We're moving again, so we're going back to look for her!"

"Garrus," Liara spoke as patiently as she could, "I understand, but we can't just—"

"I will tell Jeff to take us back to find a dock on the Citadel," EDI said, already turning to head back to the bridge.

Liara looked at her in confusion. "What?"

EDI looked at her as if the answer was obvious. "You may occupy the XO office, but the commander listed Garrus as her second-in-command. Until such time as she is found, the ship is his."

Garrus froze. "…what?" Terra had actually trusted him with her most prized possession, her beloved _Normandy_? That was…that was unbelievable. Well, perhaps not, since she was unlikely to trust anyone else with something so precious to her and she had made it very clear that she trusted him more than everyone else in her life put together. No, it was more that he just couldn't believe it. He had never dared to think of a day his mate wasn't in command of her _Normandy_, never allowed himself to ponder what would happen if she would be separated from the ship for even one hour and he wasn't right behind her. But she had. And now…now…

He forced it back. Right now, all that mattered was that Terra needed him. As far as he was concerned, her utmost faith in him was, in this instance, a temporary tool to recover the true commander of the ship. When she was with him again, he'd ignore the irony of giving up a chance he'd likely never have again with the war over and appreciate the poetry in how their love had been the thing to save her.

Once word got around that Garrus had outright taken Terra's command and essentially ordered EDI and Joker to take them back to the Citadel, the debates went silent, the crew resigning themselves to waiting to discover the truth for themselves. This takeoff was one of the tensest they'd undergone, as if everyone onboard was bracing for the worst until the exact moment that the ship rose from the atmosphere and jumped back towards Earth.

Garrus spent the entire journey leaning against the wall behind the cockpit, halfway between watching the stars go past and lying in wait nearest the airlock to be ready to jump onto the station the exact second they docked. His talons were clutching Terra's pack, just as they had been the day he lost her on the SR-1, and his mind was occupied with thoughts of where they were going. Earth, the planet her people were born on, the world her parents left to give their children a life on a beautiful colony, the world she had been so delighted to share with him, the one the Reapers had torn to shreds and then torn her away from when he couldn't follow.

These thoughts clearly weren't helping him (unless they were distracting him from thoughts of where she must be and why she couldn't establish contact with anyone), but he couldn't exactly divert them to anything else. Palaven was just as shredded and filled with memories of her…and of her _leaving_. The Citadel was where they were going, completely displaced and undone by the Reapers last strike, and again reminded him of her seeing him and then walking away. There was nowhere he hadn't been where she hadn't been right behind him. …he couldn't imagine a life without that.

"Didn't she have a saying about how worrying doesn't make things go faster?"

Garrus smirked. "Something like that."

Castis shook his head as he stepped up to lean on the wall directly behind his son. "We're _all_ worried about her, Garrus. You might recognize that this may be something you can't do alone."

Garrus shook his head. "You saw how the others were about the diversion. They're all doubting. I can't afford to. Besides, I know the station better than anyone else here."

"Actually, ever since you set the course and then set up camp here, the entire ground squad—and Violet—has been begging Solana to talk you into letting them tag along."

Garrus, slightly stunned, turned to look at his dad. "And she asked _you_ to come talk me into it instead?"

"She felt like doing so directly would betray her ulterior motives."

Ah. "Because she wants to go, too."

"Exactly. You might think about it before you go rushing in. I know being separated from a mate can make you do some crazy things, but you're no good to her right now if you're not thinking straight." With that, he made it clear he'd said his piece.

Before Castis could turn to go, though, Garrus found himself voicing the question he hadn't dared to for nearly a year. "You and Mom were mated."

Castis stopped in his tracks, turning back to his son and nodding. "We were."

"…how did you stand to be away from her so much?"

Castis smirked. "Because, in a way, I wasn't."

As the words' meaning became clear, Garrus looked down at the pack he was still clutching in his talons. It was true. Terra had said it more than once. No matter where they went, their hearts were still with each other. Even when she was gone, he'd never stopped remembering their time together, he'd always known just what she'd be thinking if she was still with him. He'd always love her and she'd always be looking out for him. That was just who they were. What they were meant to be. It wasn't a matter of how he would react if it _did _happen, no…he _couldn't _lose that. Never.

Garrus sighed. "Tell the others to suit up."

Castis nodded. "I wouldn't be surprised if they already were."

Garrus smirked to himself as his father walked away. It was true, they cared about her and wanted to see her safe. They'd do anything to ensure it. He wouldn't be _able_ to start the search without them.

Just as he reached this conclusion, his COMM beeped. Confused, he answered it to find Primarch Victus on the line. _"Vakarian, are you there? We heard the _Normandy_ was back in the air and headed home."_

"Yeah, we're on our way. About to make an approach to the Citadel. How's our troops?"

_"Losses were about what we predicted, but we're holding out alright. Did you just say you're docking on the Citadel?"_

"Yes, our ground team's forming a search party."

_"Vakarian—" Victus started._

"I can't talk, sir," Garrus countered, "We need to be ready to move out the second we dock."

_"_Vakarian_—!"_

"I'm serious! We have MIA on that station and I'm not leaving her—them!"

_Victus sighed, realizing he wasn't getting through to his advisor and going silent to try another way._

Garrus ignored him, already turning to keep searching. "I'll talk to you after I get back—" He stopped when he felt his omni-tool buzzing. Frantic at the thought of it being a message from Terra, he answered without even bothering to see who sent it. When he saw it was a forwarded message, he froze uncertainly.

Then he read it.

…oh.

From: Terra Shepard

To: Adrien Victus

I am writing this to declare my bonding to Garrus Vakarian and request a formal acknowledgement. I know this is irregular, but as you may have noticed, these are pretty irregular times. On the off chance this doesn't even go through, that's fine, I'll see you at the actual wedding when this is over.

Garrus stood there, frozen, gaze locked on the message. She'd actually done it. Even after he said he didn't want to tempt fate, she'd gone through with it. Was she more afraid than she'd let on? …or was she genuinely "covering all the bases" to make good on his promise to "do this right by both our peoples' standards"?

_"She sent me that right before the final assault," Victus' voice continued over his COMM, "Just in case, I assume. I didn't get a chance to grant her request." Once he heard Garrus go silent, he took the chance to say what he needed to: "I know what she means to you. We already searched the area around the beam. It's shut down, but we were able to secure the station. We have confirmation that's where she was when it went off. Some of the docks are damaged or losing life support, so you should start on Tayseri Ward and go from there."_

That was it. No doubts of her survival, none of the anticipated attempts to talk him down. Victus had actually seen them coming and even cleared the way for them to start searching. Garrus was still stunned from the message and didn't know how to respond to this. "Thank you."

"Coming out of FTL," Joker called from the pilot seat, "We're in sight of the Citadel and locking an approach vector."

_"I'll leave you to it," Victus said down the line, "We'll see you when it's time to go home, Vakarian."_

Garrus offered a simple farewell, only thinking afterwards that whether or not he even went back to Palaven with the primarch would be dependent on where his mate—his _bond-_mate, officially now—would be. This was no time to think of that, though, so he focused on giving Joker Victus' suggested heading and then preparing to head out.

As expected, a grand total of nine people set out to search the station. For once, they didn't really have a plan for how to proceed, since the station was too massive to search in its entirety, but they all resolved they weren't leaving until they'd found their commander and brought her home. Their COMMs were functional and the threats were clear, so they were fully capable of splitting up, but since each room they came across was somehow trashed and had an enormous amount of ground to cover, they never got far. EDI made the mistake of timing them and confirmed that, by the time they finished all the accessible section of the Ward and started moving into the keeper tunnels, four hours had gone by. They were deterred, but it was hard to deny a few of them were already a little discouraged.

"Look, we're in a _maze_ now," Ashley sighed, "Maybe we should just all start branching off as we headed down the line and ping each other if we get lost."

"We won't get lost at all if we stick together," Garrus retorted, "And more eyes in one area is better than a few in many—one of us might catch something the others missed."

"But if we keep going this way," James said as he and Tali started fiddling with the next door, "searching the whole place will take us at least—"

"74 hours and 56 minutes," EDI finished for him, apparently having already calculated the exact duration of the search at their current pace, "Assuming a certain level of injury and armor damage, Shepard is likely to expire of dehydration within 38."

James froze, finally turning to glare at the AI. "Yes, that is exactly what we needed to _not_ hear."

Tali seemed to roll her eyes at them as she finally got the door to open and led them in. It was pitch black inside, though, and it was a matter of two seconds before three of them had stumbled or run into something, so she quickly put in a few commands on her omni-tool to give them a light. "We can keep discussing strategies all we want, but Terra wouldn't want us to argue about how best to…to…_Keelah_…"

They'd just turned down a corridor filled to the rafters with human corpses.

Garrus immediately turned away. Unfortunately, even that wasn't fast enough to stop Violet from coming in the door behind them. One look at her horrified reaction and he quickly jumped to shield her. "Vi—"

She did it for him, shrinking away from the door and fleeing around the corner. By the time he caught up with her, she was curled up against a wall, halfway to tears.

He took her side. Like he'd always done for Terra. "The Reapers are gone, OK? This isn't going to happen again."

"But this…there's so many…what if Terra—?"

The second he caught her meaning, he took hold of her. "_She's not_. She's alive and we're going to find her."

Violet took a second to level her breathing rate, but it was clear she wasn't calming down at all. Still, Garrus knew how to handle a shaken human, and she found herself opening up when she was able to speak again. "…after they took me…it was like all my worst nightmares came together and then locked me inside, like they'd stolen everything I was…but the worst part wasn't thinking there was no way out. It was knowing that even if I did get out, I had nothing to go back to. I saw Mom and Dad die, I saw Nathan die, I thought Terra…" She almost started crying to think of how lonely and hopeless (and even those words were far too simple to describe it) she had been when she had woken up in chains and known that her whole family was gone.

Garrus hadn't taken the time to think how hard it must have been for her all that time. He had known she had been helpless and miserable, sure, but he hadn't thought about how alone she must have been. He knew what that was like. He had gone for two years thinking Terra was dead. He couldn't imagine going for 16 that way. Or, to match Violet's perspective, thinking Solana was dead for that long.

She shook her head, her thoughts circling back around to what had just happened. "And now, if I lose her again—"

"We won't," he quickly asserted, "She's here somewhere, we just haven't reached her yet. All we have to do is keep looking." He knew she needed to hear the words to restore her resolve, but he could also see they weren't enough anymore. Knowing the fears she was now grappling with… It hurt him to even think of saying this, but it had to be said: "And even if we don't…you're not alone anymore. You have a place on the _Normandy_ now and always will." He smiled. "And my family's here to take you in just like we did her."

She gave him a grateful look as she nodded. "They can't take me back."

"No." He took her hand and smiled, the same tenderly encouraging gestures he'd given to Terra when she was grieving Violet. "…you're _my_ sister now, too, remember? On the off chance you can't fight for yourself, I'm here to look out for you."

She smiled softly, enough to let him know that she appreciated it and trusted him. It did mean a lot to know that someone who had known her for so short a time was willing to do so much for her, that he loved her sister enough to look out for her as well. At first, she took comfort in his promise to do so. Then again, her parents had made the same promise once and Nathan had died trying to keep it. She couldn't live with herself if something happened to Garrus while he was trying to protect her. But he was right, she could protect herself, too. And now that the worst was over, she wasn't supposed to have anything to fear anymore. Still…

Garrus noticed her disquiet, though. He knew the Shepard girls enough to catch on fast. Violet apparently had the same tells as her sister. He didn't press the matter or ask what was bothering her now. He just stayed close, letting her know he was there to lean on when she needed him.

That was enough. She reached up to finger her necklace, remembering what Bakara had told her when she gave her the crystal, and told herself to stop letting her fears get the best of her. Fear couldn't control her anymore. Nothing could. "I'm free. I have my family back. I intend to keep things that way."

He smirked. "Sounds like a plan."

"Hey, Scars!" James came out of the corridor to meet up with them, the rest of the squad just behind. "It's clear, she's not in there."

"I scanned the entire room," EDI confirmed, "Some of the bodies are missing genetic material, but none of the others have the genetic signature on file for Terra Shepard."

Garrus nodded. "And if they're missing genetic material, it means they were harvested. They would have to have been here for _days_ before the Reapers shut down." He turned to Violet and stated it plain: "She's not in there."

Violet nodded back, clearly relieved. "Do we have a way to track her from here?"

"She would have been injured when she went through the beam," Solana suggested, "She might have left a blood trail."

"If she did, we haven't found it yet," Garrus shook his head, "The station's massive, we don't even know where she came through, and we can't just scan the whole thing." _She might not have time,_ he struggled not to contemplate.

"And we can't exactly go through the beam ourselves and follow her from there," Ashley sighed, "seeing as how it shut down when the Reapers did."

"It wouldn't matter if we could," Liara pointed out, "There's no guarantee it led to a set location on the Citadel, it could've dropped us all in different Wards. We'd be right back to square one."

"But the Reapers were using it to transport bodies for harvest, right?" Violet suggested, even though she was clearly disturbed by the prospect, "Doesn't that mean it led here?"

"Not exactly," Tali shook her head, "The keepers have been dragging bodies everywhere through their tunnels, it still could've led to any room in these halls."

Garrus groaned. "What's that human expression? 'Like finding a hay in a needle stack'?"

"Other way around," Ashley corrected, "but yours feels more appropriate right now."

Violet went quiet, her thoughts running wild as soon as she did. "…this is just like Mindoir."

Garrus sighed. "Vi, that's not—"

"How did you find her then?"

He wasn't expecting that. "…what?"

"The colony was massacred. It was just like that room. I couldn't see anything clearly while it was happening, couldn't even keep up with Nathan and Terra. She had to have been _invisible_ for the slavers to miss her entirely. How did _you_ find her?"

He wasn't sure how to respond, but the sight of the others looking at him as if he had the answer to their current problem prompted him to simply tell the truth. "The batarians were gone by then. The whole colony was dead silent. …I _heard_ her."

"You will not do so now," Javik shook his head, "She is not answering COMM signals. She is likely unconscious. She will not be making any noise."

"Her COMM is still active," EDI agreed, "but triangulating its location has proved ineffective."

"That doesn't mean _she_ can't hear _us_," Violet countered, turning on her omni-tool and set a song playing on its speakers.

"Yes, it does," Javik waved her off, "If she is not cognizant, she cannot hear it or respond to it."

"Not exactly," EDI said, "It is just as likely she is in and out of consciousness as it is that she is fully comatose. This means there is still an approximate 40% chance she could hear us and respond. Even if this is not enough, there is no harm in leaving it running."

"How do we know she'll know to respond at all?" James asked.

Violet smiled. "It's one of Mom's. Terra's favorite. She'll know it."

Garrus recognized the tune now. It was indeed "Call of the Starbird." Knowing the story behind its composition, he couldn't deny it was appropriate. "Turn it up, Violet. Let's go."

They set back to their search, taking the looping music as hope to cling to. A slim hope, but more than they'd had when they walked down that corridor. Time ticked by all the same as they covered all the ground they could, the keeper tunnels a winding maze that led everywhere and nowhere. EDI didn't bring up her timer again, but they all knew it was slowly unraveling, all the time left in which Terra could reasonably survive if they didn't find her. Garrus didn't let it get to him. He knew his human, and she wouldn't go down that easy.

And so she didn't.

Terra hadn't been awake for more than two minutes at a time since she'd activated the Crucible. The scene with the Catalyst seemed like a strange dream, but she knew she'd done something that she'd known would disable the Reapers for good. She didn't know where she was now, barely able to move, barely able to see her surroundings. When she roused this time, her senses swam in an unfocused blur.

…but she knew that song. So she knew who was there.

She didn't have the strength to call out or get up, but she could do something. Her omni-tool flickered when she turned it on. It was dying by now. But it had enough power left in it for this. She turned on the flashlight and flashed it upwards like a flare. If they were close enough, they'd find her. As she started drifting back under, she told herself they were coming.

Solana was the one who saw it. When they came into the vast, open hall filled with wreckage and debris, she already had her suspicions this was closer to the heart of the blast that had been the Crucible's activation. Therefore, she suspected this was the most likely place for Terra to be. So when she saw that light flash out of the corner of her eye, there wasn't a doubt in her mind of the source. She nodded her brother over and told him what happened. He was already running that way halfway before she said his mate's name.

The scene was intimidating. The hall was immense and in so many pieces that it could take hours just to properly search this one room. The squad spread out, generally aiming towards the area Solana pointed out to them as the source of the light while Violet turned the music up even louder as a precaution, but even the vicinity of the flash wasn't narrow enough to give them a genuine focus. They knew they were in the right place now and what they were looking for, yet still the odds seemed stacked against them. Garrus, more than all of the rest of them put together, was growing frantic as he pushed through the wreckage towards any sign of his love. He was losing ground with every second, drawing closer to the end of the hall with no sign of her, no other sight or noise to even verify her presence, let alone draw him to her. That feeling he'd been trying so hard to avoid was rushing back, the feeling of going crazy with helpless anger and longing to know that she was out of his reach…!

That was when he found her.

He knew he'd found her when he caught her scent on the air. It was unmistakable. The second he found it, he followed it, climbing over a particularly imposing (though, at this moment, rather irrelevant) mound of rubble and dropping down into the crevice below. Once there, he caught sight of the familiar glint of sapphire and silver—the necklace he made her all those years ago, still shining even now. Beaming with delight and relief, he dove down to remove every piece of rock, metal, and dust in his way until his talons brushed against the tender flesh of his human.

She started rousing slightly when he touched her. Weakly, she started attempting to back away.

Before she could hurt herself trying to move, he took her hand. "It's OK. It's over. They're gone."

Those words, the first he ever spoke to her, and the new meaning they now had drew her to respond. Struggling just to open her eyes and look at him, she reached for him. "…Garrus…"

He smiled sadly at the sound of her weakened voice calling for him. He carefully took her into his arms. "I'm here, love…I'm here…" In between each reassurance, he, without even thinking about it, started whispering into her ear turian words that were meant only for a mate. They couldn't be translated into any human language, but she knew them. Hearing them helped to soothe her, but that merely sent her fading out of consciousness again. He quickly called for the others so they could get her out of here and to a hospital.

He wasn't losing her now.


	88. In My Recovery

Chapter 88: In My Recovery

In shadowed, infinite halls  
In echoing, deafening silence  
In painful, hollow blood  
I see light and hope  
I hear voices and songs  
I feel warmth and love  
I reach out  
I am called

_October 7, 2186…_

The squad carefully carried Terra's broken body back to the ship, thanks to EDI's meticulously tracked path back to the docks. Dr. Chakwas met them at the airlock, telling Joker to head down to the nearest hospital in full operation on Earth even before she'd started inspecting Terra for herself. Of course the doctor couldn't fix it herself, of course medi-gel wouldn't be enough. It just would've been nice for, now of all times, the simple solution to be the right one.

Much like she had done for him the day she'd saved him from Omega, Garrus never left Terra's side or even let go of her. She barely woke up, but she seemed to be leaning into him every time. Before they touched down back in London, she had even had two brief periods of awareness in which she reached for her sisters (which apparently meant Violet, Solana, _and Tali_, much to the quarian's flattered and almost tearful astonishment). Even once she was in the hospital, being rushed straight to the doctors, he was still holding onto her hand.

"How bad is it?" the doctors asked the second she came in.

EDI immediately spoke up: "Medical scans indicate burns and contusions across 62% of the body, a steady and significant rate of blood loss, 14 broken bones, 16 cracked, severe shock to the nervous system, and a possible concussion."

"Enough…don't wake them up!" Terra wailed without waking as she unconsciously clung to Garrus' hand, not even responding to how the sudden tension dug his talons into one of her injuries.

"…a definite concussion. And her intervals of consciousness are growing shorter."

"She might be slipping into a coma," one of the doctors reasoned, "Her cybernetics will have been trying to compensate, but they must be failing by now. We need to move fast."

As seemingly every available member of the medical staff hurried over to set to work, her rescuers started following her down the halls.

They made it all of two steps before a nurse barred the path. "No visitors past here. We need space to operate."

Garrus didn't bother hiding his desperation. "Can't I stay with her?"

"I'm sorry," the nurse said, "Only family—"

"He _is_ family!" Violet asserted. She didn't seem to notice or care about the shocked looks everyone gave her at the sharp interjection. She just stepped past to reach her sister.

The nurse just looked between the two in confusion. "…is she your wife?"

Garrus took Terra's side, his talons wrapping around her hand. Refugee, friend, student, teacher, sister, girlfriend, fiancé, wife, mate…he had never had a word to truly describe what she was to him, beyond how he called her his human. But now he couldn't deny a small smile as he realized he'd had the perfect word all along: "…she's my everything."

The nurse seemed to think better of objecting further, finally nodding to the doctors to let him and Violet stay. The others quietly agreed to stay back (though Liara discreetly connected their COMMs to Garrus' as they withdrew) and set to the difficult task of waiting.

Garrus was careful to stay out of the way while the doctors were working away at his mate's fractures and wounds. Being this close to her like this and not staying close enough to comfort her was hard, but he needed to know that she would be OK. That didn't mean he could watch while they were cutting into her (injuries in the heat of battle were one thing; the slow, deliberateness of this healing process was quite another), so he spent that time staying close to Violet, distracting her from the worst of it and gently reminding her that, if there was anyone in this entire galaxy who could come back from this, it was their Terra.

After what must have been six hours, everything started to calm down. Slowly, the crowd of doctors hovering over the unconscious soldier's body dissipated and left her to her recovery. Garrus immediately moved a chair right up against the bed, took Terra's hand firmly in his, and laid his head down on her. The sheer weight of the day's events combined with the steady beeping of the nearby heart monitor got the best of him and he fell asleep still clutching her fingers in his talons.

Violet, however, managed to stay awake. She smiled softly at the sight, taking comfort in it. The rest was up to Terra, after all, and with Garrus right there to fortify her, she wouldn't have any trouble with that. Violet had just finished reaching this conclusion when she heard voices she recognized arguing with one she didn't, just barely audible to her through the walls.

"…just open the door! We're family!"

"Yeah, right. I have eyes."

"_Adopted_ family, dumbbell! Just let us in!"

Violet finally went over to check what was going on. Castis had left the ship and caught up with them, and his arrival to no news at all had apparently pushed Solana past her breaking point. She'd come up, her father right behind her, to start demanding entrance to Terra's room now that the operations were over.

Castis was attempting to placate his daughter. "Solana—"

Violet removed the need, opening the door. "It's OK, doctor. She's telling the truth. And they won't get in your way."

The doctor was clearly still uncertain but finally sighed in consent. "Fine. Go on in."

Solana gave a grateful nod before heading in, her father following suit, and hugging Violet. "How is she?"

"OK, I guess," Violet answered, taking her seat back, "They did everything they could and she seems to be healing, but she's still not waking up any more. Or less."

Solana sighed, taking a seat nearby and returning to the wait. It was easier now she could see her adopted sister and know that nothing was going wrong right that second that she couldn't prevent. But it was still a wait. Of all the things Solana was good at, waiting was not exactly her best.

Terra was still in and out. She opened her eyes now for a moment. She was facing away from Solana, Castis, and Violet, so no one noticed. Her vision didn't clear fast enough, but she could definitely feel something. Three sharp talons clutching her hand. She tried to shift her fingers to return the gesture, but merely that much effort was enough to drain her so she immediately fell back under.

_October 8, 2186…_

Time didn't seem like an enemy now that Terra was safely in the hospital, but it now seemed to be mocking them as it continued to go by with no sign of her waking completely. She was still not falling completely under, but she didn't seem to be truly recovering either. Garrus kept telling himself that humans did most of their healing in their sleep, so staying in her current state was technically a good sign, but he couldn't deny that a small part of him was growing more and more fearful for her.

He had slept the whole night on her bedside (he kind of regretting not doing it _at _her bedside when he woke up with a bent spine, but he didn't care). When he woke up, he immediately returned all his attention to his mate, his talons softly gliding over the few unbroken patches of her skin.

"Yes, I'm still here. Thanks for checking in."

Garrus smirked as he looked over at his sister, who was also still in the position she'd adopted last night. "Did I miss anything?"

Solana shrugged. "A few more five-second intervals of half-asleep nonsense. I think she was asking for you, but she kept drifting off again before I could tell her you were right there."

Garrus sighed. "She'll get through this."

"She's gotten through worse."

"Yeah." Then he looked around. "Wait, where are Dad and Violet?"

"Dad's checking on the others and Violet said she needed to get something from the ship."

Garrus nodded. He did wonder how the others were holding up since they couldn't be in there with her. Some of them weren't exactly patient, after all. Terra was what brought them together and held them together. Without her…without her, there _was_ no _Normandy_.

That was when the door opened and Violet came racing in. Holding her violin.

Garrus quickly realized what she had in mind. "Violet, what are you doing? We're—"

"I know," Violet insisted, "I had to try." Once she was certain no other arguments were going to be made, she raised the instrument and began to play.

Garrus exchanged glances with Solana as if they were both saying _This is a bad idea, but we can't exactly talk her out of it and it might work, so go along with it._ When Violet started playing, it was as if everything else fell silent to hear her. The same tune that had drawn Terra to respond on the Citadel so they could find her rang out now, hoping for the same thing to happen again. Though the song was meant for piano, it was just as beautiful if not more so on a violin, especially one Violet Shepard was playing. It was as if the fairytale bird that inspired the song was truly calling to Terra.

Yet nothing happened. At least until the last note was finished ringing out. Terra fluttered awake again for a brief moment, again clutching Garrus' hand, failing to speak, and fading out once more.

Garrus sighed as he laid his other hand over hers. "It was worth a shot. Thanks, Vi."

"It worked," Violet said, utterly convinced of the fact, "It always works. It was made for us. I had to try and now I know. I have to keep going."

Solana finally got up. "Violet, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but—"

"What is going on in here?!" the door opened to let a nurse in.

Solana groaned. "But _that_."

The nurse quickly noticed what Violet was holding. "Did you smuggle that in here? We're getting noise complaints."

"You're getting what?"

"I said, we're—" the nurse turned around to face the voice and found himself face-to-face with the menacing features of Urdnot Wrex. "…uh…nothing. Nothing at all. …sir." With that, he briskly walked away.

Violet smirked, still clutching her bow and violin. "Thanks, big guy."

Wrex smirked back. "Anytime, kid."

_October 9, 2186…_

After 36 hours had gone by since her admittance, the restrictions on Terra's visitation were finally lifted (though, considering his recent effect on the other policies, it was possible that the arrival of Wrex had something to do with this). Her squad-mates then began to funnel in and out of the room to check in on her every few minutes. They were careful not to all go in at once and crowd the room, in case there genuinely was a concern to be had about that particular matter. When the rest of Terra's former squad-mates began to arrive and join the vigil (Jack and Zaeed waving this off as a result of having nothing better to do now the war was over), tensions started mounting. The bright side of that issue was that it meant Violet was practically required to keep playing, practically becoming a constant background noise that the medical staff eventually admitted was having a calming effect on some of the other patients in earshot. Violet didn't let up, and EDI even observed that Terra's intervals of consciousness were growing longer and more frequent (though a few of them didn't even notice the difference). They were all fighting not to let the passing time get to them, all holding out hope that their commander could defeat even this.

Garrus was the one who had moved the least since all this started. He stayed at his mate's side as much as he possibly could through this whole ordeal. He had made a vow, after all, whether it'd been made official or not. Even now, he was brushing his talons through her soft brown hair and clumsily attempting to tie it back into its familiar style. There was something reassuring about seeing her hair falling back over her right eye. If not for the injuries still marring her visage, she'd look like she genuinely was simply asleep, about to wake at any moment to lock her beautiful sapphire eyes on his and smile lovingly before kissing him like there was no tomorrow and reveling in the joy that there _would be_ and they would be together for it. He could see it perfectly. But she was still fighting something far less mundane than the rest she'd so desperately needed and earned.

This wasn't fair. Any of it. She'd given enough of herself to take them so far, she shouldn't have had to risk her life to end it. They had _made it_, they had _won_, and she was still paying the price. If she didn't make it, he would be lost for the rest of his life. Maybe he really would live up to some of those human stories she'd told and grieve himself to death for her, now that he truly knew what he'd be missing. He couldn't live without her now. They'd made their promises to prove that he wouldn't have to. He couldn't lose her…he couldn't…

"Still nothing?"

He turned to see Tali coming over to sit beside him. "More of the same."

She sighed. "Something's got to happen eventually. Did they try rebooting her cybernetics?"

"EDI and Miranda already went over this. There's only a 68% chance that it'll drop her into the coma and then shock restart to wake her up. There's a 32% chance the shutdown before the restart would make her heart lose the ability to keep beating and then the reboot would be too slow to halt brain death."

"Those are pretty good odds."

"When the choices are shock and death, I'm not willing to risk it."

Tali nodded as she saw his point. "I don't suppose there's anything else I could think of that hasn't been tossed around the room at some point." Instead of bothering to come up with another suggestion, then, she reached over and laid her hand on his. "She'll make it."

Garrus nodded back. "It's just hard."

"I know." After a tense moment of silent, she gently nudged him out of his seat. "You need a break. I can watch her for you."

"Tali, no. Every time she's woken up, she's been hanging onto _me_."

"She reached for me, too, remember? It'll just be for a minute, she might not even come around before you come back. If she wakes up for real, I'll call you."

He didn't like the idea of leaving her side for anything, but Tali was someone he could trust with this and she was right. So he reluctantly went along with it. "Alright. One minute." So he stood up, letting his talons drift affectionately over his mate's hand, and turned to walk away.

He was only halfway to the door when the heart monitor began to resound the dreaded single tone.

…_?…_

_She remembered the flash of light as the Crucible's "choices" exploded in front of her. She remembered hitting the floor hard right after. Then all she remembered was brief moments of awareness eclipsed by an unending darkness—blurred shades of white and red, the sound of a song she'd grown up to, the feeling of talons she knew and loved with all her heart clutching her hand. She wasn't aware of a change, but this was definitely different. This time she'd woken up all the way, her surroundings perfectly clear. However, those surroundings were as empty as the forest in her nightmares, a hollow void that she was halfway convinced was the darkness between her waking moments. She had her suspicions something was wrong the second she saw this. All these suspicions were confirmed when she attempted to get up and found that her injuries were gone._

_"You've come a long way."_

…_she knew that voice. But she couldn't see anyone there. "Who is that? Where are you?"_

_"I guess I should've known. I know I don't say it much, but…you're actually very inspiring."_

_Wait. She knew those words, too…from her last birthday on Mindoir. Terra realized who she was talking to now. "…Nate?"_

_Now that she knew, the form that stepped out of the shadows was clearer, as if someone had turned on a light inside this void. There was her big brother, just as she remembered him. "Yeah."_

_She smiled tearfully, jumping to embrace him. But when she realized what was wrong about this, her joy started receding. "Wait, I…" She hesitantly drew back to give him a wary look. "Am I…dead?"_

_He shook his head. "No. Sort of…halfway between."_

_"…so I'm dying."_

_"Not quite. That sort of depends."_

_She looked at him questioningly. "On what?"_

_He smirked, placing a hand on her heart as he stepped past her._

_Terra sighed. "Still not giving straight answers to questions, I see." Before he could respond, she was thrown back a step by a sharp pain, her sight giving way to a flash of blinding white. "What…what was that?!"_

_Nathan winced. "Oh. That was a, uh…defibrillation."_

_She didn't think her eyes could get any wider than the shocked look she gave him now. "I'm sorry, _WHAT?!_"_

_"Your heart stopped. That's why you were able to slip down here enough for me to contact you."_

_"So I _am_ dying?!"_

_"Not quite. That was just the first shock. The third one's gonna resuscitate you in about six seconds."_

…_oh. "So I only get to see you for six seconds?"_

_"Gonna have to say 'not quite' to that, too. For us, it's gonna be more like six minutes. Time's kind of funny here."_

_She cast another wary glance around her. "And 'here' is where exactly? My subconscious? …or the place between here and there?"_

_He shrugged. "Could be either/or. Might even be both."_

_"Come on, don't get all philosophical on me now. It's a simple explanation: are you in my head or really checking in on me?"_

_"Honestly, could be both on that, too."_

_She groaned, shaking her head. "Forgot how much I missed your noncommittal wordplay." Once again, the period in which she expected a retort was interrupted by the pain and light. Second shock, then. Down to one._

_He sighed, stepping over to place his hand on her arm. "If I were you, I'd stop asking questions and take this chance while you have it."_

_She understood that. "Yeah." She laid her hand on his sadly for a moment before taking a step back. "It was so hard without you. I lost _everything_ in one day. And I tried to move on, I made my survival mean something, but there was always that pain inside…like I couldn't let go, like I was still that little lost orphan, and I still can't—"_

_"They want me to tell you they're proud of you," Nathan cut in._

_Terra looked at him. She was uncertain whether to let this be hopeful or to return to her original wariness. "…who?"_

_"Mom. Dad. Kaidan, Mordin, Thane, Legion. Anderson. …and Garrus' mom."_

_Hearing those names from him was almost too much for her. "…really?"_

_He smiled. "We're all waiting in the same place for you, after all. And even up there, you brought us together. We've all been watching you." He almost laughed. "It's a story I would've wanted to write."_

_She laughed with him, though she could feel the tears inside her reaching her eyes._

_So he did what brothers do at times like this and took hold of his sister. "But it's not done yet. Terra, you still have so much more to give. You have so much to live for, so many people who care about you and want you to be _free_." He smiled again, letting her lean into him. "You have someone who loves you in a way few people in this galaxy could ever hope to understand, someone who adores you so much he wants to devote his whole life to you. And I know you feel the same way. And you deserve to have that."_

_She knew he was right. She wouldn't want to give that up for anything. She did regret that her brother would never have anything like she had found, that all the stories he'd been meant to tell were lost forever. But she hadn't lost everything that day. Violet had come back and Garrus had found her… She would only lose everything if she gave up now._

_"So go back and be with him. And the rest of your family." He smirked, teasing her hair. "Find your happy ending. We'll all still be waiting for you when it's over."_

_By the time he said it, she was fully crying. She addressed this by hugging him again. "I love you."_

_He smiled. "We know. Right back at you." When he finally broke off the embrace, he began to walk away, still giving her a look of encouragement. And pride. "Now finish the fight once and for all."_

_Three._

She shocked awake. Her senses were weaker than ever for this one, but she could still tell the hospital room was absolutely frantic. Those six seconds had been six minutes for her, but they must've felt like six hours for the two people who now rushed to her side. Her ears were ringing, but she thought she could hear her mate's voice begging her not to let that happen again, swearing he would never leave her.

Those words she barely heard stuck with her when the dark closed in again. She was back in the shallow shadows that had been dragging her along since the Crucible, the deep, vast void her brother's ghost had found her in now gone for good (she got the feeling that seeing it again would mean the end for her). But she knew what she had to do now. Nathan had said it more plainly than anything else he'd ever told her: fight.

So she fought it with all the strength she had left in her. In a way, it was harder than any of the other battles she'd faced. Everything she'd fought her way out of in the past had required her physical and mental strength. This relied on her force of will. But she'd been tempered in the fires of Mindoir, of Palaven, of Earth, and of the Citadel. Liara had said it before Ilos and it was even truer now. Terra's mind could take this. She wouldn't let anything get between her and her family. She didn't give in for one second, no matter how hard she had to struggle, every fiber of her being committed to crawling back into control…until she felt the struggle end.

When Terra woke up this time, there was no pull back under. Five seconds ticked by and she was still in the land of the living. Steadily, she began testing her muscles. They were barely responsive, but she could feel them. Her senses still weren't clear, but she had them. The only question was how much time had passed.

And if she was alone. Struggling, she reached her hand out to her side for the one she knew wouldn't leave it. "…Garrus…"

The second he heard her voice, he perked up. "Terra?" He quickly turned all of his attention to her, beaming with sheer hopeful delight for the first time since he found her at the sight of her eyes. "Terra!"

She smiled as she weakly reached her hand up to him.

He took it for her, resting it on his scars even as he leaned over to lay his head on hers. "You're back…"

For the first time in her life, she felt like she was at peace. "I promised."


	89. Awake and Alive

Chapter 89: Awake and Alive

Once you have tasted death  
You see life differently  
Once you have faced the end  
You find a new beginning

_October 10, 2186…_

The second Garrus had messaged everyone in the waiting room that Terra was awake, they'd all come running to check on her. The room was already full by the time it occurred to anyone that they shouldn't be crowding her. It was only once they were all there that she brought herself to try sitting up and realized that her senses were clearing a lot slower than normal. EDI had taken all of two seconds to run a medical scan and, ignoring Joker's ever-so-helpful input on the matter, inform them that some of her cybernetics had stopped functioning. Specifically the ones in her ocular and auditory nerves. The feeling in her extremities and control of her limbs coming back slowly could be attributed to muscle atrophy from a week of barely moving, but EDI promptly informed the nearest available doctor that the affected implants would need to be rebooted.

The reboot had seemed like the same shock of pain as the defibrillation, though she was hesitant to confess out loud (except maybe later to Garrus or Violet) what she had seen when her heart stopped. Once that wore off, she was informed that it would take the better part of a day for the implants to fully come back online and reintegrate with her nervous system. In the meantime, Terra was endeavoring to endure the period in which her nerves were slowly repairing themselves. Needless to say, she could see why Cerberus had decided to expedite this particular process with the implants in the first place.

As before, Garrus remained the only one unwilling to leave her side for one second. He would never admit it with the entirety of their squad in the room, but he had never been more terrified in his life than when her heart stopped after he turned his back on her. He wasn't leaving the room now. She didn't seem to mind, didn't even seem to notice how he was holding onto her hand the whole time. When Terra finally said she needed some time to herself, not a word was said when Garrus didn't even move, even as all the others gave her their own offers of support and walked out. Terra simply laid back in the bed, resting her body to aid the healing process as much as she could without falling back asleep, and absentmindedly stroked her finger over the talon tightly clutching her hand.

For a little while, Garrus simply sat there, silently admiring her and relishing the feeling of her affectionate caress. It'd been too long without that. He'd missed this. Seeing she was still recovering, though, some part of him was still worried for her. "How are your eyes?" he finally asked.

Terra shrugged. "In and out. And when they're in, they're blurry."

"But you can hear me alright?"

"Still a little ringing, but yeah."

He simply stayed close, the hand not tightly around hers reaching over to stroke her hair again. He couldn't do much to help her, but he could be patient as long as he knew she was safe, especially with her scent slowly permeating the room.

Terra smiled. "Thank you."

Garrus cocked his head at her. "For what?"

"Everything. But especially for staying with me now."

He decided not to question why she would ever think he wouldn't, seeing through her words to all the layers upon layers of meaning between and beneath them. "You know I'd do anything for you, Terra."

She smirked. "My pack. Is it here?"

"Yeah. I haven't let go of it." He took it in his hands and held it up.

"Take out my sketchbook."

He gave her a curious look even as he complied. "Why? You can't see anything yet."

"I know." She reached out to lay her hand on the talons that clutched her precious book. "You're going to help me."

She couldn't have stunned him more if she'd asked him to throw the book out the window. "I…_what_?"

"I'm serious. I taught you how to do this. You know me. We can do it. I don't need to look, I just need you to guide my hand."

"Terra, that's…this is—"

"Do you trust me or not?"

That had never felt like a weighted question when it came to her, yet it struck him as such now. Her art was a part of her he never dared to touch. Emulate, maybe, but never interfere with. This went beyond trusting. She was asking him to be her guiding light, be a part of her very soul. …which…in a way, was…kind of what it meant to be bonded. Finally, he smirked and nodded. "Yeah. I trust you more than anyone."

She smiled. "Then find the next blank page."

So Garrus followed along. He found the page she needed and laid the book on her lap so she could take it in hand. He opened her pencil case (and left it open to play the song Violet had recorded into it) and gave her the one she needed. Then he sat down beside her, wrapped his hand around hers, and started to lead her through it.

As soon as the pencil touched the paper, it began to feel natural. Her movements were a bit uncertain at first, but he was able to steady her hand. She moved with purpose even though she couldn't see it, even closing her eyes when her blurred vision started to fade back in and misdirect her. When she finished one stroke, she would tell him as simply as she could where she needed to start again and he would slide her hand into position. His hesitation faded as they continued. It was coming so easily to them, as if their hands were one. They both felt it, this unity, this togetherness. Even after all they had been through, it was safe to say they had never felt it before.

After four hours went by (it was a wonder they weren't interrupted), the image was nearing completion. By now, Garrus could see what she was making, something that made him smile delightedly. He saw it so well that he didn't even notice that her directions were growing simpler and eventually silent. She noticed, though, smiling at the thought that they truly were joined in this deeper than they were for anything else. She had never even dreamed of sharing this with anyone, but with him… She wanted this for the rest of her life.

"We work well together," Garrus observed.

Terra smiled, stopping to lay her head on his shoulder. "We do. I'd say it's our finest work." As she said this, she set the pencil down, turning her hand into his and sliding the fingers on her free hand across the curves of the sketch.

When she did that, Garrus put the pieces together. "You can see just fine, can't you?"

She smirked and shrugged. "A little bit."

"Right. And exactly how long have we been doing this despite that fact?"

"About 20 minutes."

He shook his head. "You're lucky I stopped minding so quickly."

"Well, it was going so well, I didn't want to interrupt. You familiar with the concept of synergy?"

He couldn't help a smirk as he held her close. "I am now."

She was tempted to simply stay this way, to just rest in his arms and relish the peace they had finally found and dream of what was ahead of them. But now that she was seeing clearly for the first time since the Crucible, she seized the opportunity to turn and admire the love of her life. The face she planned to wake up to every morning from here on out. There wasn't a thing she would change. Then she turned to set everything aside so they could properly enjoy their newfound time alone together.

Before Terra could close the sketchbook, Garrus smiled at the picture they'd made. He'd realized halfway through what she was doing, but he was able to truly appreciate it now. It was a portrait of the two of them…on their wedding day. "Looking forward to the future, I see."

Terra smiled back. "It's with you. And I'd say we've earned it."

"Yeah. Think we can handle it?"

She answered that by reaching around to kiss him. "…challenge accepted."

_October 11, 2186…_

Terra and Garrus spent the night resting and recuperating. Terra woke up refreshed, if not quite back on her feet yet, and Garrus managed to shake off the weight of worrying over her for so long. Naturally, their alone time was up and everyone else wanted to check in on their recovering commander. Terra didn't mind. It was nice to have a family behind her now that it was all over.

Violet exemplified this. She even went so far as to climb onto the bed with her sister because leaning over it didn't feel like a proper enough hug. "No more of this, alright?"

Terra smirked. "That's kind of the plan. And thanks for playing for me."

Violet smiled back. "Glad I could help."

Terra turned back to the others. "I didn't get a chance to ask about the _Normandy_."

"A bit scratched up," Joker admitted, "but good to go." He smirked. "Missing her commander."

"Then I guess it's a good thing I'm coming back."

"We'll be right behind you, Lola," James nodded, "All the way."

"Definitely," Ashley concurred.

Terra sat back and took it in as Liara and Solana agreed to stay with her (Garrus and Violet's agreement unspoken but clear), as all the others offered their fondest wishes and offers to come if they were ever needed again (and a few snarky remarks about being invited to the wedding). It was hard to believe that the madness of the past three years was over and that she had come out the other side with so many people she could count on. Add on her reunion with her sister and her future with her mate…and it was perfect.

"Uh, Terra?" Tali spoke up, "The geth are on the COMMs. They're asking for you."

Terra didn't give herself a chance to think what this could mean and turn them down. "Put them on speaker, then."

_"Commander Shepard," a geth voice came over the COMM, "we are completing our initial scans of the Reaper remains now."_

"Please tell me it's good news," Terra sighed, "I don't fancy turning the Crucible on again. …or expect it to even work twice in the first place."

_"The news is…neutral."_

That was a new one. Terra gave an uncertain look to the COMM. "I'm listening."

_"The Reaper corpses are not dead in the same capacity as the one you disabled on Rannoch. They are silent, hollow. They have not been destroyed, they have simply been deactivated."_

"Wait, you're not saying they can turn on again, are you?!" Solana immediately demanded.

_"No. Whatever network or central intelligence they had has been completely removed. Even if they were given a substitute and reactivated, they would not be the same. In addition, we have been able to successfully begin salvage on several of the superstructures. We can confirm that even the facet of indoctrination that would be left in a normal Reaper corpse is fully nonfunctioning."_

Tali gave the COMM unit an astonished look. "You're serious?"

_"Of course."_

"Well, can you access one of their data cores?"

_"We are already attempting to extract one and begin transcribing its databanks. If these attempts and all erasure of malicious code possibly contained within are successful, we will be able to transmit the data to every scientist and engineer in range of an operational COMM buoy. This information will allow us to fully restore any damaged relays back to a useful state as well as repair the Citadel and return it to its original orbital position."_

This seemed unbelievable. Terra wasn't convinced there wouldn't be some downsides further down the line, but it seemed that her cheat at the Catalyst had paid off exactly how she'd wanted it to. Later on, she'd probably wonder about how it would've looked if she had just taken one of the options laid out for her instead of risking everything in a maneuver no one else would've cooked up, let alone attempted. But since, according to the Catalyst's own predictions, the options didn't include a future that led to everyone in this room surviving…right now, she really didn't care.

Liara beamed at Terra. "Whatever you did up there, Shepard…it might just be the best thing that's ever happened to the galaxy."

Terra hoped so. Time would tell. For now, she was content to know that the galaxy remained united in the wake of its common enemy's defeat, that all their sacrifices hadn't been in vain, that happy endings actually existed and she had found hers. If ever the day came that she regretted her choice at the Crucible, she wouldn't be alone to face the consequences. That was enough.

"So!" Kasumi spoke up, "What's everyone planning on doing now that the galaxy's no longer in imminent peril?"

After a couple seconds in which they could all revel in the fact that they'd done it, they'd saved the galaxy, the discussion of plans for the future was able to kick off in a way they hadn't dared to at the party. Samara was planning to spend time with Falere in between her justicar missions, Wrex was looking forward to seeing Bakara have his first child and overseeing Tuchanka's reconstruction and repopulation, Jack was already organizing her students in preparation for a return to Grissom Academy, Zaeed was even suggesting he might start planning for retirement. The only one absent from the conversation was Javik, something Terra quickly took notice of where none of the others did. She gave the Prothean a discreet but pointed look as if to remind him of her thoughts on the matter. He answered with a similarly discreet nod as if to confirm he was considering her words before taking any action. She elected to reserve judgment on any action he took for now. For the first time since he was born, it was his life to live. His choice.

Rather than dwelling on that matter, Terra quickly changed the subject. "Actually, before we move on from _all_ the madness, there's one last matter we need to settle."

Miranda gave her a curious look. "What's that?"

"We need to trade kill counts!"

That drew some excitement and laughter.

"Hey, no fair!" Solana called, "I wasn't on the ground!"

"Yeah, and what about me?" Violet asked.

"Sol," Terra answered, "you were helping EDI with her combat data, which counts as assists for every kill during the missile launch part of the mission, and Vi, you were moral support for all eight of us."

Violet considered for a moment before shrugging. "I can accept that."

"Oh, I'm at the top for sure," Wrex smirked, "Even 50."

"Ha!" Grunt scoffed, "Try 52, old-timer."

"Well, this hardly seems fair," Kasumi shook her head, "I wasn't on the ground either."

"You fixed up the Crucible," Jacob pointed out, "That facilitates all of ours. Specifically my 45."

Terra simply sat back and enjoyed the debate. Quietly, she was also very impressed that everyone scored so high. It made sense given the sheer number of Husks sent after them in the final assault and her squad's individual skills. Still, it was nice to know that they could all hold their own so well even when they weren't all together.

"I kind of lost count when we were surrounded," Tali stated, "There was a lot happening at once and we were all working together."

"I was able to keep track of who all had kill shots," EDI arbitrated, "Javik had 57, Liara and I each had 56, James had 60—"

"Alright!" James smirked, "That's the highest yet! Take that!"

"—Ashley had 63—"

"…oh."

Ashley smirked at him. "Nice effort there, Vega."

"—Tali had 64," EDI continued, "Terra had 71, and Garrus had 72."

"Ha!" Garrus laughed, "Would you look at that! Looks like the student didn't become the master after all."

Terra gave him a look. "Not so fast, peacock. We have to adjust for inflation."

Garrus looked at her in confusion. "What does that mean?"

"It means mine is closer to _50,000_."

"Oh, come on! You don't get to count _every_ Reaper in the galaxy as _your_ kill!"

"Why not?! I'm the one who flipped the switch!"

It took all of two seconds for that statement to devolve the entire conversation into a heated argument. Though this argument, unlike most, didn't involve any actual anger or insult. It was friendly, an outlet through which to expose and eliminate all the negative energy remaining from the last few months. When Garrus realized this, he looked at Terra as if to ask if that had been her intention. She smirked and winked at him, all the answer he needed. The rest of the day passed in much the same way, good-natured "disagreements" and playful banter being passed back and forth. The norm of the _Normandy_ crew.

After it calmed down and they started to clear out to give Terra room to finish her recovery in quiet, Violet took her sister's side. "I think Mom and Dad would like your new family."

Terra smiled. "_Our_ new family…and I'm sure they do."

Violet smiled back. "Yeah." Then she sighed. "I never really thought about it until we were all talking, but…I have a future now. For the first time in 16 years. I'm not even sure what I want to do anymore."

Terra took her hand. "You can do whatever you want. You can play again. You can go out and show this whole galaxy who you are and what you can do. Or if you just want to stay on the _Normandy_ with us, that's fine. You're practically part of the crew now."

Violet thought it over. "It might take some time to figure it out…but you're right. And I'm ready now." She turned to look her sister in the eye with pure gratitude, clutching her hand tighter. "You really are a hero, Terra. That future I just got back? _You_ gave it to me. And _you_ showed me how to be myself again, how to put it all behind me." She laughed. "I actually wish I was more like _you_."

Terra laughed with her. "That's definitely a new one."

Violet took a moment to just enjoy laughing with her sister again. Then she looked over at the corner Garrus had settled into and smirked. "I'll let you get some rest. Call me if you need a lullaby or anything."

After Violet had left the room, Garrus took Terra's side instead. "So what do _you_ want to do with your future?"

Terra beamed. "Besides be with you? I'll stay a Spectre as long as I'm needed, but I'd like to eventually stop fighting and just have what I had on Mindoir—painting, poetry, and _peace_."

He nodded. "Fair enough."

"Why? You got something in mind?"

He smirked. "Just you."

"Really? No regrets, no plans, not even any unfulfilled dreams?"

"…you've got a habit of bringing me to them."

She rolled her eyes. "Fair enough." With a deep sigh, she laid back. "How about tonight? Any plans there?"

"You know I'm not leaving this room as long as you're in it. I wanna see you back in action as soon as you can."

She smirked. "Then I guess you're gonna have to sleep with me so I'll feel safe."

He didn't meet her prodding with a retort or question how he was supposed to fit on the hospital bed with her. He just crawled in and let her curl up against him. He didn't fall asleep until she did, whether because he couldn't relax until he knew she could or because the soft pounding of her heartbeat against his chest was what finally calmed him. Limited space aside, he slept better than he had in a long time. They both did. It meant the world to know that this was what awaited them for every night to come.

_October 12, 2186…_

They somehow made it through the night on the single-person-fitting cot without either of them falling off or even leaving each other's embrace. Garrus, after a small interval of admiring his mate again, promptly got up to give her space to stretch out and finish resting. They spent the morning simply enjoying each other's company in a way they hadn't done since they first left Palaven (though their relationship had changed quite a lot since then, so this was technically new territory for them), interspersed with visits from the rest of Terra's family (adopted, blood, and otherwise). As the morning began to fade to afternoon, the doctor finally came by to give her one last check and confirm she was near fully recovered.

Terra responded by deciding to test this out, having Garrus help her out of the bed so she could stand up on her own for the first time in nearly two weeks. Her footing was a bit unsteady at first, nearly bringing her to drop onto the bed again, but she wasn't easily deterred and, leaning as little as possible on her mate, brought herself back up. In no time at all, she felt good as new.

Well, until the doctor started talking. "You seem to be recovered, commander," the doctor said, mistakenly putting the emphasis on "seem" rather than "recovered" and earning a halfhearted glare from his patient, "We would still like to keep you a little longer for observation and physical therapy—"

"Screw that," Terra snapped, "There's a doctor on the _Normandy_ perfectly capable of doing all that herself. I'm out of here." She didn't even give the doctor a chance to debate the matter before turning to gather her things and ask Violet over the COMM to bring her a fresh set of clothes.

Garrus sighed, turning to the doctor. "Do yourself a favor. Just go along with her. She's gonna have her way no matter what you do." Once the doctor had conceded and walked out clearly muttering under his breath about how the great Commander Shepard was too stubborn and foolhardy for her own good, Garrus turned all his attention to his mate. It really was a great relief to see her back to her old self. He couldn't help but smile and take her side, wrapping his arms around her before she could push him away. "I don't suppose you'll be needing any help getting changed?"

Terra rolled her eyes at him. "Don't push it, love."

Violet had apparently foreseen this development, judging by how quickly she arrived with a set of civvies from Terra's closet on the _Normandy_. Terra immediately presented just how back to normal she was by changing in ten seconds flat, strapping her pack back on, and storming out of the hospital room as if she never wanted to see it again. Waving aside any further interaction with the medical personnel on duty, she hurried to the waiting room where her family was waiting and started celebrating her recovery, which entailed enthusiastic hugs from more than half of them (specifically Tali, Solana, Liara, Wrex, and Grunt) and a quick evacuation from the building to a setting more suited to occasion, which, given how virtually the entire city was still demolished from the Reaper occupation and the Citadel was a bit trashed, could only be the _Normandy_. Terra's arrival was greeted with no small amount of joy from the entirety of the crew, all of whom were quick to assure her that the repairs to the ship were complete and it was ready for her command when she was ready to fly. …that is, when the repairs to the mass relays were also complete and there was somewhere to go.

"How long are those relay repairs going to take, anyway?" Terra asked, hopping up to sit on the railing around the galaxy map.

"The fleets started repairs almost immediately after the Crucible damaged them," Liara explained, "and the geth deciphering the Reapers' data on them was extremely helpful. It'll still be a little while before the entire network is back in working order, but with all the communication channels also being restored, we should at least be able to start sending the fleets back home within the month."

Terra sighed. "More than long enough to get all our wounded treated. Good to hear. What about the Citadel? Think they'll get it patched up? I'd hate to have burned down that apartment only a few days after I got."

"It'll be fine," Garrus waved her off, "Came back from Sovereign, after all. Just needs a few hands helping out the keepers and a little push back to Widow. Should even reestablish its own orbit."

"Besides, I think we have a more pressing issue to discuss," Violet pointed out.

Terra gave her a confused look. "What do you mean?"

"Ahem!" Violet reached over to grab her sister's hand and hold it up, pointedly displaying the engagement ring.

Terra laughed. "Vi, the war's been over for all of five minutes. I think we can stand to have a little celebration before we start plans that will likely take months anyway."

"I will accept that stipulation as long as I'm maid of honor."

"Seriously, you're blackmailing me already?"

"I shouldn't have to. I'm your sister. It's tradition."

"I am electing to stay out of this until such time as it directly involves me," Solana sighed, leaning back against the wall.

"Let's just take the night to enjoy the fact that we saved the galaxy and lived to tell about it," Kasumi smirked.

Terra smiled, pushing everyone to go along with that plan. She had a feeling that the issue of her imminent wedding would come up again the very next day and that, even after they had all gone their separate ways, she'd be in constant communication with Tali and possibly Kasumi about it. But again, that was in the future. Right now was about celebrating that they had one.

Terra had had fun at the party in her apartment. But this was somehow better. They were all still together, and the separation awaiting them was more distant and because they were all going _home_ rather than off to the final battle. True, home was a bit far away even then since they all had a lot of reconstruction ahead to get things back the way they were (or perhaps better now that they had the Reaper data on the past cycles to give them a little guidance), but it was there to go back to. That deserved a little celebration.

When they finally called it a night, Terra headed up to deck 1 to relish the fact that she was back in her own bed. And that her mate was back in it with her.

"So what do we do now that you're a free woman?" Garrus smirked as he took her side.

Terra smiled, wrapping her hand around his. "I believe we already made our plans." Thoughts of the bonding they'd undergone and the wedding to come promised to give her more pleasant dreams than she'd had in years as she settled down to sleep in his arms again. "I love you, Garrus Vakarian."

He held her close, reveling in those words. "I love you, Terra Shepard."


	90. Looking Forward

Chapter 90: Looking Forward

As darkness falls behind us  
All the lights seem brighter

_November 5, 2186…_

Terra's suspicions proved accurate. Once it was established they wouldn't be taking off for a while, she had decided to go ahead and start planning the wedding with Garrus. From the onset, Tali, Violet, Solana, Liara, Ashley, and Kasumi were all _very_ involved in all of it. It was pretty clear it was going to stay that way even after everyone had gone their separate ways. Though they all knew and acknowledged this, every last one of them began dancing around the fact that this arrangement wasn't the new standard and most of them had other places to be once the relays were restored. As the repairs progressed, this unspoken weight turned the air somber until it finally settled with a calm acceptance and some fully voiced promises to remain in contact for…well, knowing them, what might well come to be the rest of their lives (until such time as Liara and Grunt and possibly even Wrex and Samara outlived them all, but they all knew better than to worry about that).

Now the day came when EDI announced to the entire ship that the relays were repaired and had even been tested and found fully functioning once again. Terra was sad to see the team having to finally separate, possibly for good, but she was able to take comfort in the future for once. They would all be together again when she and Garrus were finally joined, after all. Wrex and Jacob were having children, Tali had a home-world to rebuild, Jack had her students, Miranda had her sister, even Liara had her father. And through all this, her words in London held true: there was bond between them all now that was stronger than any other force in the galaxy. No matter what was ahead of them, they would all always be her family and the crew of the _Normandy_.

So though the collective farewells were bittersweet to say the least, Terra managed. If she was being honest with herself, it was actually kind of wonderful to see them all going off to something resembling a happy ending. Amid all the heartfelt goodbyes and promises to keep in touch, she held it together knowing that this was worth everything she'd faced, that this was exactly what she'd been fighting for the whole time.

That said, it got hard when it came to Tali. She thought saying goodbye to her was going to break her heart. Tali clearly felt the same if the way she waited until last and then stalled her departure for nearly an hour with idle chatter and "last-minute engineering checks" was anything to go by. Unfortunately, the time still came when they had to face it.

"I, uh…" Tali hesitated even now, "…should probably be going. The fleet will be headed back to Rannoch and I should be there to, you know—"

"Oversee relations with the geth and build your beach house?" Terra smirked.

Tali laughed. "Yeah, that."

Terra took a moment to let the quarian know how happy she was for her. Then she jumped to hug her. "You call me _all the time_, got it? I'm gonna miss you."

Tali nodded, hugging her back. "I'll miss you, too."

"And hey," Terra whispered as she leaned back from the embrace, "when you come to the wedding…I expect to see you without the mask again."

Tali couldn't help a small smirk from behind the mask in question. "Might take a lot of immunity treatments…but I'll figure it out."

Honestly, prolonging the hug was a bit risky even with the suit in the way, but neither of them seemed to care. Like any human best friend or sister, Tali stayed at Terra's side as long as she possibly could. She only stepped back entirely when Garrus came along to say goodbye to her and tell her essentially all the same things Terra said. Liara followed suit. Then Ashley. Then James ("See you at the wedding, Sparks."). Then EDI. Then Joker. Solana even seemed as touched as her brother ("What? You mean a lot to Terra and Garrus. Of course I like you, too."). But, as could be expected and yet not foreseen, Violet was the one most upset by the quarian's forthcoming departure.

Violet smiled as she hugged Tali for herself. "You're my sister's best friend. I'd like to think that gives me a right to call you close."

Tali laughed. "Yeah, well, I guess we have a lot in common. Even aside from the fact we both have experience losing a home and family only to find a new one here."

Violet simply finished hugging her, trying not to show how upset she was that said new family was going their separate ways right down to such an integral member of it. Still, she finished saying her goodbyes and stepped back. But then, before Tali could grab her things and go, she came back. "Oh, I was wondering. Are the quarians all going to be 'vas Rannoch' from now on?"

Tali shrugged. "Probably."

"…would you stay 'vas Normandy'?"

Tali beamed. "Always."

Not long after that, Tali forced herself to get on with it and left the ship she had called home for so long, making her way back to her people to go back to the home-world she had been longing for all her life. The ship felt a lot emptier without her. Terra simply clung to Garrus' hand and laid a supporting hand of her own on Violet's shoulder. To dispel the somber quiet, the others started heading back to their posts as if preparing for the next crisis.

"You know," Solana spoke up even as she started to make her way to the navigation console, "this ship has always had a mission. There's always been a Reaper to kill or a commander to save. It's never flown free before. What are we going to do?"

Terra smiled, affectionately stroking the rail around the galaxy map. "Explore. Keep the peace. See the galaxy. Whatever's needed of us…and whatever we want." She sighed, taking her command position. "We're free, too."

Solana smirked. "Guess you'll be getting a lot more use out of your navigation then. Bet you're glad I'm sticking around."

Terra laughed. "For more reasons than one."

"Where to first, commander?" Joker asked as he headed back to the pilot's seat.

Terra took a moment to think it over. The galaxy map had never seemed so open before, nothing to force her a certain direction. In a way, this was what she had dreamed of before she'd enlisted, what the call of the Starbird felt like. But before she could follow through on that, there was one place they had to go first. "Palaven. We need to drop off Castis, check in on the reconstruction." She smiled. "And I wanna show Violet our home."

Joker smiled back. "Aye-aye."

_December 11, 2186…_

Garrus was in the battery, checking his weapons on the bench, when someone came up behind him and dropped a wrapped box in front of him. He immediately stopped what he was doing, turning to give Terra a confused look. "What's this?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "It's your 'birthday' again."

He scoffed, shaking his head. "Right. We haven't done this is three years."

"Well, I tried last year and I wasn't exactly in a position to for the two previous, but I tried to make up for it. Of course, Violet caught me on the way here and asked what was going on. She then proceeded to ask me why I never mentioned to anyone that it was your 'birthday,' so I had to explain how turians don't record it and I had to do a bunch of detective work to narrow it down and it's really just between the two of us now."

He smirked. "Not that I don't appreciate the arrangement, but you really don't have to do this anymore."

"I have a right to as long as we're getting married, genius." She smirked back, stepping closer to pointedly gesture to his visor. "Besides, I believe it's because of this 'arrangement' that you have that and haven't taken it off in four years."

He elected not to respond. "Right."

She nudged him. "Well, go on. Open it before Vi starts listening at the door or something."

Giving her one last uncertain glance, he turned to open it. He might've guessed she'd sneak three different things into the one big box, especially given her comment about compensating for the three missed years, but the first thing he pulled out still threw him. "This…this is a jar of dirt."

She rolled her eyes. "It's tempered soil in a heated planter. …I took it from my garden."

He saw the meaning now. Setting foot on Palaven for the first time since the war ended had been a solemn moment for them all, not least because of the ashes and bones that remained in the once grand silver city. Violet gave a passing complaint about having to wear an enviro-suit to shake off the radiation Terra had so long ago acclimated to, but Garrus had been silently thanking the spirits that they didn't need breathers since, by all accounts, the cinders of Cipritine had permeated the atmosphere for weeks and even suffocated some of the citizens who hadn't been able to evacuate fast enough. Terra didn't say so out loud, but he'd been able to tell she sort of regretted having this be the first that her sister saw of the world she loved, the world he was born on. Violet hadn't seemed to care, finding the beauty in the ruins. Solana had even dragged Violet off at one point with the promise of showing her something that definitely hadn't changed, which didn't make sense to Garrus but seemed to amuse Terra to no end. Terra and Garrus were left to walk with Castis back to what remained of the house they'd once called home. Being on the outskirts of the capital had again paid off since the building hadn't been completely leveled or incinerated, but it wasn't exactly in one piece. Castis assured them it'd be fine, practically starting the reconstruction then and there as the hierarchy moved back onto its home-world to begin restoring its silver majesty. Terra had settled for looking over the yard she'd spent so much time in for two years before finally snuggling against her mate on the spot where they had first claimed each other, once again exchanging those meaningful words of "You're my human" and "You're my turian." The day had ended on a hopeful note, as if the entire experience had been a glimpse of turian resilience and not a single thought of the Reapers' devastation had crossed their minds.

This "jar of dirt" in his hands wasn't just a clump of soil. It was a piece of home. A symbol of the past he shared with her. Just like the rock she'd handed to Tali on Rannoch, she'd managed to take the simplest of things and give it a significance beyond description.

"And it's not just the 'dirt,'" Terra added pointedly, "There was enough room for a plant." She smirked. "So I tracked down a demael seed."

He almost laughed. Her favorite Palaven bloom, the one he had drawn for her the day they first separated, the one she had lamented not seeing the day they returned. "I hate to disappoint you, but you do realize I'm never gonna remember to water it."

She answered that by flicking a switch on the side of the planter where the heating controls were, triggering an irrigation cycle.

He shook his head, carefully setting it on the side of his workbench. "You never give up when you get an idea in your head, do you?"

She shook her head back at him. "You're the reason I have a scrap of the SR-1 on my desk, remember? Now get on with the rest of it."

He knew better than to argue, turning to check the box for the other contents. As usual, she had elected to make one of the gifts practical rather than sentimental. Apparently, she had noticed him eying up the gun shop the last time they were on the Citadel before London, because she had gotten the silencer scope he'd thought would go well on his sniper rifle. They probably wouldn't get as much use out of it now that the war was over, but he was happy to accept it nonetheless, even handing her the box so he could get back to his workbench and swap sights immediately.

"Glad to know you like it," she snickered.

"Shut up." Despite his glaring remark, he set the rifle aside after he completed the switch, electing to test it later, and turned to see what the third gift was. At first, he wasn't sure what to think when he saw what looked like a sketchbook there. Then he opened it and he just wasn't sure what to say. Much like her brother's compilation of her discarded works, she had put together a series of sketches, paintings, and brief poetry…all of which centered on Palaven and the Vakarian family. And like her brother's compilation, the final opening was a portrait of said family, adopted human and all, dedicated in loving memory to its late matriarch. "…Terra…"

"I know," she smirked.

Instead of trying to voice his feelings anyway, he set the book aside. "You're right. This was—"

"Uh…" she interrupted, "…you missed one."

Confused, he looked back at the box. It looked empty, but…wait. He looked more closely and found that there was something in what seemed like a black frame face-down in the box. He carefully withdrew the frame and turned it over.

The drawing they'd made together in the hospital, removed from her sketchbook and framed proudly.

Garrus immediately set the frame in a position of honor on his workbench and then whirled around to grab his mate and kiss her so suddenly that she dropped the box. When he pulled back, he laid his head on hers. "Thank you." As she wrapped her arms around him, he held her close, remembering how it had felt when they had made the drawing together. "I can see why humans do this."

Terra smiled. "Actually, I have one more thing to give you." She started sliding her fingers up his arm enticingly. "Something I couldn't give you before."

He caught onto her meaning surprisingly quickly, smirking slyly back at her. "And where would I be…_opening_ this one?"

"Well, there are more smooth surfaces and less chances of being disturbed in our cabin."

He instantly turned to leave the room. "Let's go."

She laughed as he practically dragged her to the door. "Why the rush? You've got the rest of the day and it's not like we never do it."

"Consider it making up for all that lost time you mentioned."

"Save some for the wedding night, hon."

_February 14, 2187…_

Solana made herself useful at navigation as much as she could. Not to say EDI hadn't been brilliant at it for so long, but the turian had an eye for it. She'd spotted three different anomalies in the past week that the _Normandy_ was perfectly suited to cleaning up and, true to her word, two pretty fantastic views. Today, though, Garrus had shocked them all by staying on the ship while Terra was on the ground. The times he let her leave the ship without him were the very definition of "few and far between," and he _never_ insisted on such. Terra suspected he was up to something, but she was still pretty surprised when, after she had come back and changed out of her armor, he dragged her up to their cabin to reveal he'd set up an actual candlelight dinner.

Terra practically started laughing as he handed her a rose. "And you said you were still clueless about the romantic stuff."

Garrus smirked back. "Well, I figured I'd pull out all the stops, considering it's our first time really marking the occasion."

She gave him a confused look. "What occasion?"

He blinked. "It…it's February 14th."

When she realized what he was talking about, she started groaning. "Garrus, don't think I don't appreciate all this, but you really didn't have to do any of it."

He tried his best not to look stunned or confused. "But James said Valentine's Day was the most important holiday for humans in romantic relationships."

"That doesn't mean _I_ care. First of all, if you're single, it's either just another day or extremely depressing when all holidays should be worth celebrating. Secondly, if you're actually in a relationship that you want to have a special day for, you shouldn't need a holiday to be able to make time for each other—we especially don't, in case you haven't noticed—and having one just puts pressure on all the plans you make to be particularly special without rendering you broke. And most importantly, it's a completely conventional and made-up commercial holiday that overshadowed and ultimately overthrew a more important observance that practically no one even knows about now—the Feast of St. Cyril Methodius, who originally translated the Bible into the Slavic languages and thus invented their writing system by establishing the Cyrillic alphabet."

Garrus blinked. "Alright, if you have such strong opinions about this, why are you just now telling me?"

"Because, as I mentioned in my second point, it wasn't supposed to affect us personally and also there were much more important holidays for me to inform you about."

He blinked. "…fair enough."

She sighed, shook her head, and finally shrugged. "Ah, well. Seeing as how you've already gone to so much trouble, we might as well go ahead and enjoy it."

He smirked, wrapping his arm around her. "Sounds like a plan."

Despite her misgivings about the occasion itself, Terra would be the first to admit she greatly enjoyed their date. Garrus had a way of making even the simplest of settings enjoyable, just as she had a way of finding the artistry in them. By the time the dinner was behind them, she'd even thought "why not?" and decided to make this Valentine's Day worthy of the hype, coming over to sit in his lap and kiss him for nearly five minutes straight. He didn't exactly complain. Even after they stopped, they simply sat there, wrapped up in each other.

"You know," Terra finally spoke up, casting a thoughtful glance at the rose he had given her, "we still haven't set the date."

Garrus shrugged. "Considering the precautions we took in London, I figured we weren't in a hurry."

"Well, I guess not…but I still wanted to ask you about one."

He gave her a curious look. "Which one?"

She sighed. "The 24th."

"Of this month? Don't you think that's kind of rushed?"

"No, not this month. …April."

He froze. "…are…are you sure about that?"

She gave him a look. "I wouldn't have bothered asking if I wasn't willing to consider it."

"But…that's the day of the raid. The day the Reapers came to Earth."

"It's also the day we met. I'm sick of that being overshadowed with bad memories. I want to give it a weight we can carry." She looked down at her engagement ring with a smile. "I want to make it _ours_."

He understood that much. It only made sense for them to welcome a happy ending of sorts by both accepting and overcoming the shadows in their past. And though she didn't say so out loud, he knew her well enough to know that she saw it as a way for her family to be there for it. Plus, when it came down to it, it didn't matter what day they did it as long as they got to be married. So he smiled and answered with a question of his own. "On the Citadel or Palaven? They should both be restored enough for a ceremony by then."

She smiled. "Let's keep it radiation-free for the crew's sake."

He nodded. "Guess it's time to start making good on the plans, then."

"Ah, we've still got two months." As she said so, she stood up. "There's something else we can be spending our time on tonight."

He looked at her, not sure whether to be curious or enticed. "And what might that be?"

She simply held out her hand.

He recognized the gesture and practically started laughing. "I thought you drew the line."

"We don't have to tango to dance."

Still not quite sure what she meant, he took her hand on stood up.

Once his hand was in hers, Terra turned on her COMM. "Vi, could you play me something?"

_"Any time," Violet answered, "Got a request?"_

Terra smirked. "Something to mark the occasion."

_"Ha! Did Garrus actually manage to kick that 'Valentine's is lame' notion?"_

"…who needs a holiday when you're in love?"

Violet didn't press the matter, but Garrus was pretty sure he could hear her muttering something about her sister being a single-minded, love-struck "poet." He elected not to press that matter and simply placed his hand on his mate's waist as the former prodigy began to play a beautiful tune on her violin.

As the song filled the cabin, the two began to gently sway. Terra was right that it didn't live up to the tango at the casino (she would likely say that nothing could), but the feeling of it was the same, the feeling of moving together freely. It also couldn't compare to the synergy that had been when they drew together, but this was in its own way similar. In a moment, they barely even heard the music, caught up in falling into each other. By the time the song began to wind to an end, Terra had laid her head on Garrus' shoulder and her hand had drifted from his shoulder to his scars. He simply held her closer, his talons clutching her waist as he breathed her in. He distantly noticed when the song came to an end and Violet started asking if they needed anything else only to realize they weren't listening anymore and simply hang up.

After some time had passed with them caught up in the embrace, Terra leaned back to smile at him. "Would you have guessed the day we met that we'd end up here?"

Garrus laid his head on hers. "No…but I knew I wanted you with me forever."

She nodded. "Me, too."

In a minute, they were kissing again. By the time the day came to a close, they were on the bed together, alternating between making their plans and foreshadowing them with a different kind of union.

17 years together. A whole lifetime ahead. And when it came down to it, they would both admit it was as close as they could possibly come to perfect.


	91. Nights Before

Chapter 91: Nights Before

The beauty in the dawn  
Is in the moment just before  
In the silver blue darkness  
Which the golden red overcomes  
In the glimmer of hope and anticipation  
To know what comes next  
To know the light approaches  
And cannot be deterred

_March 6, 2187…_

"You know, Sol," Terra groaned as she took cover, "you might have noticed on EDI's scans that there was a surprising amount of turrets down here."

Solana scoffed as she ducked down next to her sister. "Yeah, and you might have noticed when you made that deal with Aria that they were all just going to go back to being mercs after the war was over."

Terra rolled her eyes, tossing a grenade over their cover at the mercs in question. She had known that, peace time or not, there would always be a few problems around the galaxy for them to handle. She had just figured that, after the Reapers, none of it would be a challenge. She was only mostly right. Hence her new policy to bring the entire team whenever possible, which she wrote off as being a choice to carry on the spirit of their excursion on the Citadel rather than because she was in any way concerned.

_"Everything alright down there?" Violet asked over the COMM she now kept constantly active when her sister was in the field._

"Fine," Terra answered as she peered over her cover just long enough to scope out the area and then ducked down when she immediately started drawing fire, "Nothing we haven't done 100 times before."

_"Oh, good. I guess I should know better than to worry about you." Then, as if to prove her point, she set to playing her flute like she had forgotten the COMM was still on._

Liara smirked. "Is this how she was on Mindoir?"

"Yeah, kind of," Terra shrugged. Then she turned to Solana to ask if she regretted leaving the navigation console or not staying on Palaven, finding her adopted sister fiddling with a display on her omni-tool. "What are you doing?"

Solana smirked. "Liara's a biotic. You, James, and Ash are combat beasts. Garrus and EDI have their tech tricks. I have this." Then, without looking, she reached her gun over their cover and fired four shots.

Across the field, four mercenaries dropped dead.

Garrus turned to give his sister a stunned look of amazement. "You have a heat-seeking target interface?!"

Solana gave him an almost smug look in reply. "I was support for a black ops squad for two months. I picked up a few tricks."

"Ha!" James laughed, "You never cease to amaze, Sunny."

"I still think you could find a more imaginative nickname for me, Vega. Then again, you stopped at 'Scars' and 'Doc.'"

"And yet went the extra mile for 'Lola' and 'Bumblebee,'" Terra smirked, "I think he's just favoring his commander."

"Can you blame me?" James retorted.

"Focus fire on the turrets, not on my little sister."

_"Oh, I don't mind," Violet spoke up, finishing the verse on her flute, "Just as long as he…" She stopped for a second as if she'd noticed something. "Hey, EDI, is someone else on the line?"_

EDI took 0.2% of a second to check. "Yes. I believe Tali is attempting to call again."

_"Is now a bad time?"_

Garrus preempted the inevitable answer to that question by overloading the turret that had them pinned down and then firing armor-piercing rounds right down its muzzle. The resulting explosion was fantastic. "Put her through."

EDI nodded, establishing the connection as they all rushed into the now open field, spreading out to whatever was available that allowed them to surround the remaining mercs.

_"Terra," Tali's voice came over the COMM, enough in itself to make the commander smile, "did I hear you had a date set?"_

"24th of next month," Terra answered, "Don't tell me you didn't get the message and thought you weren't invited!"

_"Oh, no, it's not that. It's just that we've had communications set up since we came back to Rannoch, but we just now managed to set up extranet connections, so all my messages have—" She stopped for a second when she noticed the gunfire. "What's all that noise?"_

"Caught us in the middle of a firefight," Ashley answered as she lobbed an inferno grenade into the middle of a cluster of mercs, "No big deal."

_"What? Should I call back later?"_

"Don't be ridiculous," Terra countered as she reloaded, "We don't know when you'll have time to talk again."

_"The geth are actually doing a lot of the work. I don't want to distract you."_

_"Ah, don't worry, Tali," Violet waved her off, "I've been here the whole time and they've hardly noticed me."_

_"Oh, hi, Violet. How are you doing?"_

_"Good, thanks. We haven't really gotten to talk since you left the ship, have we?"_

"Is the team frequency the best place for this conversation?" EDI stepped in.

_"Hey, I didn't exactly start it!"_

"Oh, Tal!" Solana cut in, "Since you're here, did you ask the geth about those Reaper navigational charts?"

_"Yes, actually. They're compiling them right now. I could send them to EDI later or just hand them to you directly at the wedding."_

"Wow. Have EDI get first dibs or wait a month and half to accept them in the turian approximation of a dress? Tough call."

_"Right!" Violet cut back in, "Thanks for reminding me! I was so busy worrying about the music that I forgot to ask Terra if she picked her colors yet so we could start picking the dresses and flowers."_

"I thought I told you already," Terra said, "Blue and silver. I figured it was appropriate for us."

_"Wait, really? …you're gonna make _Liara_ wear_ blue_?"_

Terra took a second to think that over. "…oh. That is a bad idea." Then she thought it over for a second longer and shrugged it off. "Ah, well, Tali can't wear a dress, period, so we'll just have to diversify. It's not exactly gonna be traditional in the first place."

"I reiterate," EDI stepped back in, "is now the best time for this conversation?"

"Oh, it's never a bad time to discuss the plans, EDI," Ashley said even as she ducked out of cover long enough to kick a mercenary back, shoot him in the face, pull the pin from the grenade on his belt, and then push him into the middle of the opposition. She smirked, taking a second to savor the _boom_ as their opponents scattered, then ducked back down to reload. "Besides, I already got a blue dress and I'd hate to lose the opportunity to rock it."

"Am I involved in any of this?" Garrus finally asked.

"As the groom?" James scoffed, "Basically, your entire job is just to show up and say 'I do.'"

Terra clearly wanted to retort but decided to let it slide. "On second thought, maybe we should be focused on the problem at hand and worry about all this later." She accented that remark by leaning out of cover enough to shoot one of the mercs in the head until he dropped.

"You did say you wanted to recapture the spirit of the mission in the archives," Liara said, "All that's missing is Glyph pinging James with a pizza bill."

Terra couldn't help but smile. "And Wrex charging in to steal everyone else's kills."

"If it'll settle the issue, I can find a silver dress. Asari do understand the concept of color coordination."

"Yeah," Ashley struggled not to start laughing, "and then she can _be_ your 'something blue.'"

In response, Terra struggled not to glare. "Ash, that's not funny."

"It's _kind of_ funny," James snickered to himself.

_Tali quickly jumped back in. "Actually, I was considering taking off more than just the one day. Maybe I can come out and meet you there so we can discuss this properly?"_

_"That'd be wonderful!" Violet beamed._

_"Then, perhaps, we can explain all these human traditions I'm failing to grasp."_

_"Honestly, most of that is based on the old concepts of luck. Still, I can see why everyone was so worried, considering it's your entire future you're talking about."_

"I see," EDI spoke up curiously, "So, in regards to the flowers, is the prediction made by who catches them usually correct?"

_"Uh, I'm willing to advocate changing the subject whenever you're ready, commander."_

"Joker?" Terra answered, "How long have you been listening?"

_"What are you talking about? I'm hooked up to Vi and EDI's channel, I never turn it off."_

Solana froze. "Wait. So, earlier, you heard me say—"

_"Don't worry, it wasn't inaccurate. If I was offended, I would've spoken up then."_

"Wait, what?" Terra asked, "What'd you say?"

Solana winced. "Uh…nothing."

Just when the conversation was about to kick back up again, the captain on the mercenary side of the field drew a heavy weapon and started laying into their cover. Terra ducked down, immediately committing all her mental faculties to determining a strategy to finish this.

Then, suddenly, the captain was thrown into the air and slammed down. The two mercenaries left next to him recoiled in shock, leaving the first of them open for an equally unexpected biotic strike that sent him stumbling back in pain.

While the other was taken down by fire from a familiar weapon, Terra stepped out of cover to finish the first of the final mercs with a heavy strike from her omni-blade. Then she turned to beam at the one who'd stepped in to finish the fight. "Javik! Didn't think you catch up with us that fast."

The Prothean shook his head at them as he holstered his weapon. "You would not have needed my help were you not so easily distracted."

"Nah, it boosts morale and throws the opposition off their game. Little known tactic."

"…of course."

Terra merely smirked to herself. Their Prothean friend had been putting off his post-war plans for months, ostensibly under the pretense of attending the wedding and helping Liara's research (though he never admitted to either out loud, naturally). He had finally gone off to visit the graves of his crew two days ago. And lo and behold, he'd returned. Terra was willing to take this as a sign that she was convincing him they could find a place for him in this cycle—at least on the _Normandy_—even though it would be the first time in his entire life there was no war to fight. In all honesty, she was mostly curious to find out what his new niche would be.

"We should probably head back to the ship," Solana said after they made sure the area was clear, "Apparently, EDI and I are gonna have charts to go over."

"I look forward to assimilating the new information," EDI nodded with a smile.

"Oh, please, don't use that word," James shook his head.

_"Right," Tali sighed, "I'll call back later."_

Terra nodded. "See you."

_"Yes, you will."_

"I don't know what's stranger," Garrus noted when they were safely back in the shuttle, "that we get most of our good planning and conversation in while we're under fire or that it's become a typical mission for us."

Terra smirked. "Honestly, with this team, I expect nothing less."

_April 11, 2187…_

Tali made good on her word. Once Terra had given the order to dock on the Citadel for the final planning phase of the wedding, her quarian friend booked a transport straight there, resolving to spend the next two weeks back with her old team. It was nearly two hours before the crew was done giving her a delighted welcome.

The Citadel had indeed easily returned to its orbit around Widow. Most of the reconstruction was even well on the way to completion. The station had been through the wringer over the past four years, but Reaper-built or not, it was the home of a newly united galaxy that would treat it well. Terra was certainly relieved to see how well the repairs were already proceeding, giving Garrus a sly smile when she saw the Presidium reservoir back to its former glory. Still, she was most relieved when she came back to her apartment on the Silversun Strip and saw that her apartment really was all but untouched, the rest of the strip intact even if not quite back to working order. Stepping into the apartment now, free of the burden of war, and seeing all her paintings still hung in place was an overwhelmingly wonderful relief. In a way, it was exactly what she had needed.

It came as a surprise when Violet caught up to her before Garrus did. "Oh, good, he's not here yet. We're going out."

Terra looked at her sister in confusion. "We're doing what?"

"Don't tell me you don't know what day it is?"

Terra did know. With everything that had happened over the past four years and everything that was going on now, she'd just assumed no one but Garrus would take the time to worry about it or even notice. "Violet, you don't have to—"

"Yes, I do!" Violet asserted, putting her foot down (which, if she wasn't a full two inches shorter than her older sister and far less combat skilled, might have been the slightest bit intimidating), "I missed your last _16_ birthdays! I'm giving you the best one yet! Now come on, let's see what shops on the station are reopened."

"Well, most of them, actually, but where are you gonna get credits—?"

"I have my ways." Before Terra could say anything more, she grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her off for the closest thing they could approximate to a shopping spree.

In all honesty, Terra would've been content to consider the day out with her sister gift enough, but Violet still insisted on also buying her whatever she wanted from every place they visited. Violet genuinely did seem to have a reasonably sized share of credits to her name that Terra would definitely be inquiring about later. It took most of the day and felt like the entirety of the station. They even ran into some of the others along the way, keeping the meetings short on Violet's insistence. Not to mention the three calls from Garrus asking what they were up to (and sneaking in some lighthearted flirtation when Violet wasn't listening). All in all, Terra thought she could safely say that this birthday was easily in the top five.

"Not number one?!" Violet demanded when she heard this, "Why not?!"

Terra shrugged. "Well, you set the bar pretty high with the last one on Mindoir, even given the bittersweet recollection of it being the last one. And true, I spent the next birthday too upset to celebrate and the birthday after that leaving Palaven to enlist and my last three birthdays either under house arrest or…_dead_. However, I also received my original position on the _Normandy_ as something of a birthday present and you can see how that went. So top three, actually, and _very_ strong contender for number one. Most definitely."

Violet sighed. "Alright, I guess that's fair enough." Then she stopped in her tracks when she noticed something else.

Terra stopped right behind her. "What?"

She looked back, her gaze remarkably unreadable. "You still don't have a dress, do you?"

"No, we're doing the last of the planning tomorrow and Liara was going to pull some strings."

Violet smirked. "We can do better than that." She nodded to a building off to the side.

Terra reluctantly looked and saw it was a dress shop. She smirked back. "Guess we can."

Now, for human females shopping for special occasions, there are two simple truths to acknowledge: you're only likely to find what you're looking for when you're not looking specifically for it, but when you find _the one_, you _know_. So it was simply par for the course that they spent 20 minutes browsing before Violet forcibly dragged Terra into a changing room to try one on that she'd barely looked at.

She knew.

Tali caught up with them there. "Terra? Violet? What are you doing in here?"

Violet beamed as she gestured to the quarian not to go near the changing room Terra was currently occupying. "Garrus isn't anywhere around here, is he?"

"No, why?"

"…because it's bad luck for the groom to see the bride in her dress before the ceremony starts."

Terra stepped out with the dress in question folded in her arms. "Tali! Wait 'til you see it."

"I'm sure it's wonderful," Tali nodded, "Lucky. I don't know how I'm going to dress up. I'm already wearing my two sexiest belts!"

Terra laughed, hooking her arm in Tali's to lead her out. "Sorry to hear it. Although…I don't suppose you've made any progress on that _other thing_ we talked about."

Tali gave the best sly look she could through the helmet. "I've made some preparations. I'll have to keep the mask close at hand and take a lot of antibiotics, but I think I can manage without for a bit longer than before. Say, oh…two hours?"

Terra beamed delightedly, finally hugging her. "Nothing would make me happier."

"I'd like to think Garrus would object to that."

Everyone else was quick to offer friendly well wishes when they heard it was her birthday. Liara, Shadow Broker as always, had even learned ahead of time the date and associated traditions and gotten her a present—a new sketchbook for when her current one inevitably became completely filled and joined her three others in the "disaster-proof" box. Terra was loath to call it a night.

As ever, Garrus was the one to persuade her otherwise, drawing her back to the apartment. "Finally, I have you all to myself."

She smirked, shaking her head at him. "I think you have to wait two more weeks to make that official."

He ignored the statement, drawing her into his arms to kiss her. "I got you a present."

"You making up for lost time, too?"

"You could say that." He led her over to sit on the couch with him before pulling a holo from his pocket. He turned it on, the display showing a series of familiar images.

She gave him a look. "You're not seriously re-gifting one of the holos I gave you, are you?"

He gave her a look halfway between amused and offended. "No. Look again."

Uncertain, she did so. When she finally caught sight of the command asking input to execute, she started to put the pieces together. When she finally figured it out, she almost went into shock. "Did you…?"

"Scan every drawing of a horizon you ever made and compile them for release onto the extranet? Yeah. So everyone can remember our worlds how they were and could be again." He smiled. "And see you the way I do. As an artist as much as a hero." He set the holo down in front of her. "I left it so you could decide whether to go through with it or not."

Terra found herself staring at the holo. It was far from the hardest decision she'd ever had to make, but it was definitely the hardest she'd had to face since the war ended. It wasn't like she'd never wanted this or didn't want it now. It was that this was a point of no return. She had never shared her art with anyone outside her own family before. The raid had killed any plans to.

…but she didn't just want to be remembered for death. She wanted to be remembered as who she was.

So she pressed the button and sent the holo's contents out into the galaxy.

Garrus took her hand. "Can't wait to see how everyone reacts."

She smiled, returning the gesture. "I've never heard any complaints."

He smirked. "Speaking of which, I have one more thing to give you."

She almost laughed to hear her own words thrown back at her. "So soon before our _special night_?"

"What can I say?" he shrugged as he pulled her upstairs, "I'm impatient."

_April 23, 2187…_

They spent the entire first half of the day before the big day at the docks, welcoming all the people who cared about them. It was always wonderful to see them all in the same place. In this instance, it was as if the events to come were only real now that they were all together. What started as a team had seamlessly turned into a family.

It took all of five minutes before the topic of Terra's art came up.

"Wow, Shepard," Jacob smirked, his omni-tool displaying the view of Earth, "I didn't realize you had it in you."

"I know!" James laughed, "Lola was holding out on us!"

"You all saw my paintings in the apartment," Terra shrugged, "I thought that meant you knew."

"Those were _originals_?" Kasumi beamed, "Wish I'd known, I could've turned a pretty penny copying them. Especially now you're famous and all." She stepped over to lean her elbow on Terra's shoulder. "On a similar note, any plans for the big day I should be helping you go over?"

"Everything's set. We just need no sign of any major crisis."

"Ah. That I can help with. More so if you point me to the venue."

Terra rolled her eyes. "Follow me."

"Oh!" Violet jumped to pursue them both, "I need to do some last-minute maid-of-honor-ing, so I'll just go with you."

Ashley shook her head. "I'm not missing this."

While all the females in the party ultimately headed on together, Joker turned to smirk at Garrus. "One more day. Any second thoughts, cold feet?"

Garrus scoffed. "Hardly. …feel like I've been waiting half my life for this."

Joker nodded. "Well, you certainly know when you've found your perfect match."

Garrus nodded back, smiling to himself.

"Oh! And speaking of last-minute preparations…I don't suppose you ever figured out who your best man is gonna be?"

Garrus froze, turning to see that all of them were now looking at him expectantly. "…uh…"

After Terra showed her friends the garden they would be holding the wedding in, they all headed off to enjoy their reunion, finding a good place to have a night out.

"Nothing too wild, ladies," Terra chided the second they walked into their chosen hangout, "Tomorrow's a big deal."

"I hear you, commander," Ashley nudged, "but it wouldn't kill you to enjoy your last night as a free woman."

Terra scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Not how I would describe it, Ash."

"Still worth a bit of celebration."

"Fine with me," Violet commented, "as long as the inherent contract in the deal is made clear beforehand."

"The…what?" Miranda asked.

Terra smirked. "Come on, she's right. We're having a girls' night the day before the wedding. You're all gonna be in the apartment with me tonight instead of Garrus. Bachelorette party or not, I'd say that makes you all bridesmaids."

"You gotta admit you all walked into this," Solana shook her head.

They had, and Terra wasn't backing down now. Violet was still maid of honor, so she sat back and joined her sister in pressuring the others. Solana, Tali, Liara, Ashley, EDI, and Miranda all graciously accepted the offer. Kasumi was reluctant to agree since she wasn't one for the spotlight but was easily worn down. Samara politely declined, opting to remain a witness to the event. Jack outright turned them down, if only on the grounds that she refused to ever be caught dead in a dress.

Terra was happy whatever the results. She didn't care if they were up there with her as long as they were there.

Speaking of which, it wasn't long after they'd reached this conclusion that the male members of their group caught up to them.

"I see we're enjoying ourselves, ladies," Joker smirked as he came over to sit next to EDI.

"Enjoying?" Grunt scoffed, "I've been to funerals more fun than this."

"Yeah, well, someone put her foot down," Jack scoffed back, nodding to Terra before ironically downing a drink (making full taunting use of her overcharged amp's side effects).

Garrus smirked, sitting down with Terra and wrapping his arm around her. "I think she's earned a few stipulations."

"Insofar as I'll remain within them," Joker retorted.

Terra answered with a wary look. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"_Someone_," James prodded, "thought the hotshot should be the best man."

Terra wasn't sure whether to laugh or go into shock as she turned her attention to her fiancé. "You didn't!"

Garrus groaned. "Of all the choices on offer, we've spent the most time with him. It just seemed like the logical choice."

"Well, I'm not saying it was the wrong answer by any means, but you do realize he's going to be unbearably smug about it, right?"

"Not too late to switch out, Scars!" James called.

"I'm not falling for that twice!" Garrus bit back.

Terra finally sighed and shook her head. "Alright, I'm putting my foot down twice. Tomorrow's a big deal, yeah, but I don't know when we'll ever be able to all get together like this again and I say we appreciate that while we can."

Liara smiled. "Fair enough."

They certainly made the most of it. Just like the party, though, time passed too quickly and they soon had to call it a night. Earlier than several of them liked, due to how much had to be done in the morning. Before long, they were splitting back up to head off.

"You gonna be OK without me?" Garrus asked his mate as they prepared to go their separate ways, to sleep in separate beds for the first time in months.

Terra nodded. "For one night? Yeah." She looked after the others with a smile. "I couldn't ask for a better family." With that, she kissed him quick and raced off for the apartment.

Garrus was actually the one who had a harder time getting to sleep. Terra was able to sleep in the same room as Violet, but he was alone. Still, it was the anticipation that made it hard to rest.

Tomorrow, their lives were changing forever.


	92. Til Death Do Us Part

I am extremely sorry this one took so long. Especially since it's apparently the most anticipated chapter in this story so far. It's been nearly a year since I started writing this story and, at the rate I started publishing it, I really thought I'd be done long before now, even knowing how long it was going to be. Well, I guess this one will just have to be a birthday present to myself. ;) Hope you all enjoy it.

Chapter 92: 'Til Death Do Us Part

Is love a feeling that takes root in the heart?  
No, but a fire that consumes the soul  
Can love be felt in pieces and parts?  
No, but for each as the whole  
Is love beneath every song and lament?  
No, but in every word and rhyme  
Can love be felt for just one moment?  
No, but for a lifetime

_April 24, 2187…_

There's no feeling quite like waking up on your wedding day. Even as a poet, Terra couldn't describe the frantic anticipation and shaky elation that came over her as she jumped out of bed that morning. True to her position as maid of honor, Violet was the one who, as soon as she was ready to leave the apartment, dragged her off to the garden and into a side building to get properly prepared.

"We've only got about two hours," Violet urged, "so you better put the dress on."

Terra smirked as she took her dress into the bathroom to change. "Is this what it feels like to have a personal stylist?"

Violet scoffed. "It's the most important day of your life. You deserve to be the most beautiful thing on the station. As your maid of honor, I'd say it's my job to ensure that."

"Hmm," Terra's voice came through the door, "Shame Garrus won't be the first to see me in the dress then."

"Yeah, well, I guess it's better that the first time he lays eyes on his bride is _perfect_." She leaned back against the wall, waiting a moment for her sister to finish changing.

When the door opened again and Terra stepped out, Violet beamed with so much awe that she almost found it hard to breathe. On anyone else, the white silk gown would be flattering, but on Terra Shepard, it was beyond stunning. The flowing skirt that made it impossible to see her lacy white shoes, the sweetheart neckline, the straps that hung below her shoulders, the tulle over the bodice and waist decorated with patterns of flowers and leaves—it fit her even more perfectly than her armor ever had.

"Terra…" Violet smiled, at a loss for words.

Terra smiled back. "I guess that's the best compliment you could give me."

Violet nodded, pulling herself together and pulling her sister over. "Well, you're _already_ the most beautiful thing on the Citadel, but we're still doing your hair." Before Terra could object, she pulled down the ponytail over her shoulder and attempted to straighten the bangs over her eye.

"Good luck," Terra commented, "It's been like that for 16 years."

"I've been doing some research. I learned a few tricks."

"You wanted this to be perfect and you were planning to do my hair yourself?"

"There aren't exactly many salons on the station."

It took the better part of an hour, but they pulled it off. Her brown hair fell in neat and glistening waves over her shoulders, curled at the ends and seeded with what seemed like sparks of light (something Kasumi had donated to the cause and apparently not given much explanation for). It even resisted its habitual position and rested evenly on both sides, bangs and all. It put her best efforts during the casino infiltration to shame.

To say the least, Terra was pleased. "You really did pick up a few tricks."

Violet smirked. "I thought so."

Terra looked down at her dress, smoothing out the skirt. "That's the dress and the hair, then. What now?"

Violet answered by adjusting her sister's necklace so that the charm was visible. "There's your something old. Guess the ring can be your something blue." She said this as she checked to make sure the bird-shaped sapphire on the ring was also showing. Then she stepped behind Terra and retrieved something from her bag, reaching over to place it gently in her sister's hair. "Here's your something new."

Terra beamed with amazement when she saw that her sister had made her a wreath of flowers wrapped together with blue ribbon. Flowers of Earth, Palaven, and Mindoir. "How did you…?"

Violet smiled. "It was a group effort, but I put on the finishing touches." She took a step back to admire her work. After a moment, she was almost in tears. "Terra, you…you're beautiful."

Terra tried to laugh. "Stop it, you're gonna make me cry."

Violet did laugh. "Yeah, well, the bride is supposed to be so breathtaking she drives everyone to tears."

Terra followed suit. "Right. I still need a 'something borrowed,' though."

The way Violet hesitated made it clear that she had a plan already in mind but didn't know if Terra would approve. For one quiet moment, Terra wondered if she should ask what the problem was. Ultimately, Violet went through with it…reaching around to untie her necklace.

Terra immediately reached to stop her. "Vi, no, I can't—"

"I know you, you'll just give it back the _second_ the ceremony's over. I want to." So she took her sister's wrist and tied the violin string around it to let the Tuchanka crystal shine.

Terra gave her a grateful smile. "So what do you think? Am I ready?"

Violet stepped back to give her one last look. Then she nodded. "You're ready."

Hearing that seemed to make everything sink in. Terra quickly hugged her sister close. "Thank you."

Violet shook her head. "This is how _I _thank _you_. For finding me, for giving me a new home…for everything."

Terra scoffed. "We're family. It's part of the deal."

"…yeah…I just wish more of the family could be here."

Terra agreed. But every time she came to regret her losses and everyone she cared about that couldn't be here, she remembered that dream of Nathan after London. "…they are."

Before Violet could question her, the door opened. "Everything's ready and we're moving in five minutes," Liara said as she stepped in with her fellow bridesmaids, "Just—" She stopped dead in her tracks when she caught sight of Terra. "…oh…Terra, you—"

Terra smirked. "Yeah, I know."

Tali quickly stepped over to get a closer look. "You're amazing! Garrus is going to lose it."

"Remind me to take pictures of that," Solana snickered.

"I can do that," a familiar voice called from the back, "Wouldn't miss it for the world."

Terra leaned around to look at the voice in astonishment. "Kasumi?"

Their Japanese thief stood there, her face visible for the first time. "I know, I know. I wanted to just stand back and cloak like at the party, but these guys insisted I go all in. Don't worry, I can still cloak if any trouble comes knocking."

Terra couldn't help but laugh. "Actually, I don't think anyone's gonna recognize you without the hood."

Kasumi laughed briefly at the irony.

With that settled, however, Terra turned her full attention to Tali. "Were you ready?"

Tali sighed. "As I'll ever be. The suit's as dressy as I can get it, and I've been taking antibiotics nonstop for the past day. I can make it about two hours."

"Then let's see it."

"Wait, what?" Ashley leaned in, "What are we seeing?"

Tali answered that by stepping back and reaching up to remove her mask. As she pried it off and slid her hood back, exposing her dark hair, glowing purple eyes, and beautiful face, she looked at her crewmates with new eyes and they looked at her for the first time. Just that much was worth the risk.

"I'd keep the mask close," Terra told her, "I don't want you to get hurt or anything just for me."

"I'll be fine," Tali asserted even as she slid the mask into the biggest pocket on her suit, "I've been preparing for too long not to be."

"Tali…" Miranda smirked, "…I'm shocked."

"Javik said that quarians were beautiful even to the Protheans," Liara said with a gentle smile, "It's good to know that's still true."

Violet shook her head. "Look, I like you, but I put a lot of work into making sure Terra doesn't have to worry about anyone outshining her on her wedding day."

Tali gave Violet a look. "Don't worry, I don't think _anyone_ can compete." Waving off any continued compliments or teasing, she turned back to the door. "We should really get going. It's about to start."

Terra agreed, rushing her friends out so she could prepare to take the long walk into the next phase of her life. Castis was waiting for her while everyone else took their positions. Violet had questioned the choice of having Castis give her away instead of simply walking alone, pointing out that the choice didn't make sense because he was the head of the family she was _joining_, but Terra had made it clear she wanted to do it this way. If her father and Anderson were both…unavailable, she wanted the closest thing she had to a father to take the position. It wasn't that she didn't see the dilemma, it was that she appreciated the poetry of it (an explanation that was so typical of her that Violet knew better than to argue with it). He was giving her away from the life she was adopted into, and at the same time, he was accepting her into that family in a whole new way. Garrus and Castis seemed to both agree with her, or at least decided to humor her, so Castis was ready now to play his part.

"Are you ready?" Castis asked as Violet thrust a bouquet into Terra's hands and hurried off to the end of the aisle.

Terra smiled, taking him by the arm. "I have been for 17 years."

Terra changed her mind—there _was_ a feeling quite like waking up on your wedding day, that feeling being each heart-pounding step down the aisle at the ceremony itself. If one were to ask Garrus, there was a feeling that topped it: the first time the groom lays eyes on the bride. Garrus had already thought Terra was beautiful, but now was the first time he'd _known_ it. For a brief second, he glanced at Violet, receiving a smug look in return that seemed to be enjoying his reaction. He smirked back before taking Terra's hand and joining her at the altar while Castis sat down, looking at both of them approvingly.

Admiral Hackett had agreed to perform the actual ceremony (there had been some jokes tossed around about Samara or Wrex taking the job, which had died down when they all found out that Samara actually couldn't and, while he technically could in his capacity as chief, Wrex was a far-beyond-crazy idea that was immediately shelved in place of asking the admiral). While everyone else present was smirking at the happy couple, he dove into the traditional words in his own personal way: "We're gathered here to join Commander Terra Shepard and Officer Garrus Vakarian in holy matrimony. It's likely none of us would be here today without these two, and in the time of peace and unity now upon us, we could all learn from them. Not just from their story, but from their love—forged in hardship, tempered in battle, overcoming all obstacles…unbreakable."

Terra couldn't help but smile. Every word was true. She hadn't realized Hackett understood them so well. …though that also made her miss Anderson even more.

In a few minutes, they were taking their vows. "Garrus Vakarian, do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, forsaking all others, as long as you both shall live?"

Garrus smiled, taking Terra's hand and, with the same certainty and belonging he had spoken the turian vows the night before London, answered plainly "I do."

"Terra Luna Shepard, do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, forsaking all others, as long as you both shall live?"

Terra smiled back, clutching Garrus' hand in return and practically tearing up with joy, and said the words every human dreads and dreams of: "I do."

It was safe to say neither of them were really listening to the rest of it. Sapphire was locked on sapphire as they gazed into each other and looked to a future spent purely together. The only thing that could snap Terra out of it was when Joker passed over her ring. Liara and Solana together had pulled a few strings to have one personally crafted for her, Palaven silver and Earth gold perfectly intertwined. It didn't match her necklace like her engagement ring did, but she felt it synonymous, equally symbolic of the bond between her and her turian. It still wasn't as perfect as she wanted since Garrus, for obvious talon-related reasons, couldn't wear the twin ring proudly like a human husband would, but they'd devised a compromise: make the ring a bit larger and he could wear it around his wrist. Terra figured he would be spending a lot more days without gloves from here on out.

"By the power vested in me, I pronounce you husband and wife."

There was presumably a "you may now kiss the bride" after that, but they were both already doing it and thus too busy to hear either the statement or the cheers. Even when they separated, they stayed close enough to breathe the same air, lost in the blissful moment as if there was no one else there. It was only when Terra felt his talons on her back that she remembered they were supposed to be doing something else and nudged him to get moving. He answered with a sly glance as if to say "we'll pick this up later" and then, holding onto his wife (he already loved getting to call her that), walked away.

The second it was over, naturally, their friends started pouring in the congratulations and teasing. Even while she was conversing with each of them in turn on the subject, Terra couldn't help but revel in how right it was for them all to, even jokingly, call her "Mrs. Vakarian." It was…_wonderful_.

"Hey, Commander _Vakarian_!" Ashley called with a smirk as she backed across the room, "You gonna toss those flowers or what?"

Terra rolled her eyes even as she smirked back and nodded.

"I don't remember hearing about this part," Tali said as Ashley pulled all her fellow bridesmaids over, "What's going on?"

"Well, see, whoever catches the bride's flowers is supposedly the next one to—"

That was when the flowers in question flew over and landed in EDI's hands.

Ashley immediately burst out laughing. "…to get married!"

While the others started laughing along with Ashley, EDI looked between them and the bouquet in her hands. Then she cast a sideways glance at Joker.

Joker looked between the AI and the flowers for a second before turning and walking away with a distressed look on his face.

EDI merely smirked after him. She'd tease him about this later.

Violet struggled not to giggle at this particular occurrence, hurrying back to Terra and Garrus as everyone took their seats for the reception. "By the way…" She hugged Garrus. "Welcome to the family."

Garrus smirked. "Right back at you."

"Hey, Vi," Terra nudged, "aren't the maid of honor and the best man supposed to give speeches about now?"

Violet withdrew. "Uh…isn't Joker supposed to go first?"

"You really wanna follow him?"

Violet winced. "Right." Bracing herself, she stood up and took the floor. She'd never had stage fright, per se, but speaking in front of the crowd was different from performing. That said, she realized any fear she might have had was purely baseless when everyone's eyes were on her. There was no disdain or demand in their gazes, just anticipation and familiarity. This was her family, after all. So she breathed and spoke from the heart: "When I was growing up, I looked up to my sister. I didn't tell her enough. I kind of hogged the spotlight back then. But Terra never needed attention. She never even needed to belong. She was…her own person. 16 years later, she found me and, even though she'd changed, she was still her own person. The difference was that she belonged now. Not to somewhere, but to someone. And I'm happy to say that the person who won her over is someone who not only loves her the same way but always will. Someone who belongs right back."

Terra smirked. Violet didn't need to be as eloquent as her sister was to say everything her music could. It was perfect to her.

Joker smirked, too, seeming to take the speech as a challenge. "Sometimes history is everything. But I think Hackett made a point that we could learn a thing or two from this in the future. I mean, you can tell by looking at us—two hotheaded krogan, a former slave, a quarian most at home on a human ship, an AI dating a guy with glass bones—I'd call that the definition of 'ragtag.' Yet the commander would call it 'family.' You could say this is just sealing the deal. …I just say it's a long time coming. And definitely in for life."

Despite his expectations, Garrus didn't regret asking Joker to step up for him.

What he did regret…

Terra had told him some humans wrote their own vows for the ceremony, right before she immediately rejected the idea because she preferred the traditional promises to any thoughts even she could dream up and believed that they both already knew what the other would say. Well, in light of Violet and Joker's words, he felt like he had to say something now.

So before Terra could question or interrupt him, he stood up. He took Terra by the hand, looked her in the eyes, ignored the curious uncertainty in her gaze, and spoke as if they were alone. "For years, I wondered about my place in the galaxy. I didn't know what I was meant for. …then 17 years ago today, I found a human that made me feel…_whole_." He smiled. "This was a long time coming. Because I do belong with you. I'm only myself with you. I love you."

Terra smiled back. Then, still clinging to his hand, she stood up with him and said what she needed to. "I thought I knew where I belonged. But when I was lost, where I belonged found _me_. And it wasn't a 'where' at all. It was a 'who.'" She shook her head. "I didn't even know who I really was. Not until now." Daughter of artists, foster of warriors, hero of Elysium, captain of _Normandy_, savior of the galaxy, beloved of her Archangel—she was all of this and more. She felt a certain indescribable joy to give herself the name she claimed now "I'm Terra Vakarian." It was true that some part of her would always be a Shepard. That was inescapable. But leaving the name behind was necessary in a way. This was who she _was_ deep inside.

If she was being honest (and if she had some quarian in her background as well as turian), there was a "vas Normandy" to be added on the end.

She thought she said the words "I love you, too," but it didn't matter. It was known. They really didn't need to be said as long as she affirmed them, wrapped up in another kiss with her mate—her _husband_.

This was definitely the moment her whole life had been leading to.

The newlyweds, to the sounds of Violet's piano prowess, had a moment to embrace, "dancing" like they had for Valentine's Day. The others all looked on, each in the own way admiring how the two were perfect for each other despite their…_differences_, how everything that had happened had done nothing at all to keep them apart, how they had achieved the union they deserved. None of them really wanted to interrupt the moment, but Tali finally said that they needed to wrap this up so she could get her mask back on before the antibiotics wore off.

So EDI stepped up. "Terra, Garrus?"

Terra didn't break away from her turian even as she drew back to look at her AI friend. "Need something, EDI?"

"I believe it is customary for guests at the ceremony to offer gifts to the bride and groom."

Terra shook her head as she reluctantly stepped back. "Yes, but it's not really necessary, EDI."

"We all prepared gifts already."

She sighed, rolling her eyes. "Of course you did."

Despite all the other hesitancies the team had had, EDI had apparently talked _everyone_ into this one. The AI had even meticulously arranged them all on a table, which Joker found both amusing and adorable (Terra was kind of looking forward to getting her "revenge" by teasing him about when he was going to propose to his co-pilot). Garrus shook his head at the whole thing and sat back to let Terra tear through them. For the most part, the gifts were more personal than practical, which Terra, as an artist, genuinely appreciated. Joker and EDI, insisting they go first, had sculpted a model of the _Normandy_ that rested on a base with the name of the ship inscribed in the language of every crewman to serve on it. Kasumi had given them a series of "mementos" from their missions together that she promised—_promised_—weren't actually stolen. Tali had…had…

Terra froze when she opened it, prompting Garrus to investigate and follow her amazement. "Tali…"

It was an image of the three of them on the cliffs of Rannoch, when Tali had removed her mask. Terra hadn't been able to capture the moment from memory in any way she thought could do it justice, but this…this was the memory perfectly.

"How did you—?"

"I saw Rannoch in the horizons you drew," Tali explained, "the ones that you put on the extranet two weeks ago. I downloaded it and used some digital trickery of my own to combine it with one I scanned from your book, plus the data from my suit to add myself in…" She shrugged. "I just knew you'd want to keep it."

She had. If she was being honest, part of the reason Terra had originally suggested to Tali to find a way to come to the ceremony without her mask was so they would have photos through the ceremony. That and to let everyone else see what she and Garrus had gotten to see that day on Rannoch. But this was better.

Terra quickly hugged Tali, holding onto the embrace as long as she dared. Then, when she leaned back, she told her it was probably safe now to put her mask back on. While Tali complied, breathing a little easier once she was back in an environment closer to Rannoch's, Terra turned back to the gifts. There were only two left by now, but by her count, that meant one was missing. "Liara?"

Liara shook her head. "My gift is…not quite ready yet. I've been working on it for several months now, but I need a bit more time."

Terra's curiosity was certainly piqued, but she elected to trust her asari friend. "Alright, I guess we can take a rain check. Not like any of us is leaving the ship any time soon."

Liara nodded, letting her know her patience was appreciated.

So Terra turned to Solana's. Apparently, her adopted sister had had much the same thought as Tali, opting to capture a moment she hadn't been able to herself. This moment, though, nearly sent her to tears. …the day they had met, the day she came to Palaven.

While Terra was emotionally reeling, Garrus turned to give a grateful and amazed look to his sister.

Solana shrugged, smiling. "It wasn't hard to piece together. A few shots from our first year, a little editing from memory, and there you go."

James leaned over and smirked. "Wow, Lola, you were even hot then."

Terra responded with a scoffing sideways glance. Garrus answered with a sharp, almost territorial glare.

James stepped back. "Just saying."

Violet all but shoved him aside. "I believe it's my turn."

Terra tentatively put aside the picture to open the last gift. In yet another reminder of that fateful year, Violet had replicated the pencil case she made, this time as a small music box that carried inside it a picture of Terra and Garrus…and the song that Violet had played for them on Valentine's Day.

For this one, Garrus stepped up first, hugging Violet. "Thank you."

Violet smiled, hugging him back. "She's lucky to have you," she whispered.

He smirked. "And vice versa. …you, too."

She barely got to give him a grateful glance before Terra was rushing to hug her as well.

Garrus stood back, letting the sisters have their moment. They deserved it. They'd waited a long time for it.

The rest of the day mostly consisted of various forms of celebration. It went by all too fast, much like the party that seemed so long ago now. Around sunset (or the Citadel's approximation of such), Terra finally said it was time for her and Garrus to head out and begin the final stage of human tradition for the occasion—the honeymoon. The suggestion led to another round of teasing and prodding, but Garrus just took it in stride. He was used to it, expecting it even, and he didn't care as long as he got his human all to himself for a while. It was as they were heading out and accepting well wishes and congratulations that they decided to take their time.

"I'll see you around," Kasumi said as she was putting her hood back on.

"You should drop in more often," Terra retorted.

"We will see you when you return to the ship," EDI said.

"Yes, we will," Joker smirked, "_Commander Vakarian_."

Terra heard the teasing tone, but she took it as a compliment. The name was only right.

"Goddess be with you both," Samara nodded, "May you find every happiness together."

"I just say this was about time," Grunt waved them off.

"Hear, hear," Wrex shook his head.

"Yes," Tali commented, "which is why I'm glad we were able to witness it."

Terra nodded. "Not as glad as I am you were here."

Tali smiled, offering what was clearly a quarian blessing: "May you walk together in happiness, joy, and prosperity for all your living days. Keelah se'lai."

Terra smiled back as she took her friend's hand. "Keelah se'lai."

"Hey," Violet nudged, "you keep saying goodbye, you're never gonna leave. It's not like they all won't be in touch when you get back."

"Right. Oh!" Terra turned to untie the string around her wrist. "That's yours."

Violet smiled as she took it back and returned it to its place around her neck. "Told you."

Garrus stepped back from the goodbyes as well. "Well, like she said, we'd better be—"

Suddenly, Violet pulled out a vial and dumped the contents all over her sister.

Terra flinched back, withholding a startled cry. "Vi! What—?!" She took a second to look herself over, eying the particles sticking to her skin. "…what is this?"

Violet looked at her as if she should already know. "It's dextro sugar."

Terra blinked at her in confusion. "Why?"

"Solana said it was a turian marital tradition."

Terra started to ask what she was talking about since turian weddings were private and practically tradition free. …then the implication hit her. "SOL!"

Solana immediately busted out laughing.

Terra made a mental note to give her what for about using her sister for a practical joke later.

Garrus decided now was as good a time as any to rush about before everyone else started making fun of his unfortunate wife for the incident (wife…wow). Exchanging a few brief cursory farewells, he waved them all off and started leading Terra off to the apartment.

Terra sighed. "I don't think it's coming off unless we give her what she wanted."

"Well, aside from that, how'd we do?"

She smiled. "Perfect. Exactly what I wanted."

"I'd say that's enough." He held onto her hand, keeping it close and thinking of how he was free to spend the rest of his life clinging to it. Every day from this point on would be with his human, conjoined, entwined, in love. To tell the truth, the ceremony itself had been more for her, because _this_ was all he ever wanted. Her. Happy. _His_. He breathed the most contented breath of his life as he drew her hand up to his scars and… "…huh."

She looked at him curiously. "What?"

He flicked his tongue between her fingers, lapping the sugar off of her skin. "I think Sol might have been onto something."


End file.
